October 15, 2010
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Closing Gun Loophole Keeps Guns Off Streets

Earlier this week the state Senate voted down an amendment that would have closed an absurd loophole in state gun laws that allows a person refused a gun permit in Pennsylvania to obtain one in Florida.

Here in Philadelphia, we have seen the sometimes fatal consequences of this loophole firsthand.

Marqus Hill was stripped of his permit to carry a gun in Philadelphia after a 2005 confrontation with police officers. Hill lost an appeal in 2008 to regain his permit and assaulted officers at the hearing. Still, he was mailed a permit last year after applying for a license in Florida.

Last month, a Philadelphia teenager was shot 13 times with the gun that the absurd ‘Florida Loophole’ allowed Marqus Hill to carry, even after Pennsylvania had revoked his license and denied his appeal.

No one can defend the sensibility of allowing someone denied a gun permit in Pennsylvania to log onto Florida’s agricultural website and obtain the same credentials the state of Pennsylvania denied.

It was reported that the state of Florida has issued more than 70,000 gun permits to non-residents that they do not track. Estimates show that between 3,000 and 4,000 Pennsylvanians have obtained these untracked firearms permits through the state of Florida.

How can we turn a blind eye when we deny someone a permit and they are able to circumvent our law and get a permit elsewhere? That is a dangerous practice and a loophole that needs to be addressed.

More than 200 mayors, countless police officers and district attorneys, and the Pennsylvania State Police have come to the legislature asking us to close the Florida loophole.

The legislature has already shown a resistance to act on illegal trafficking of firearms and many other critical gun control issues. By not passing the amendment that would have closed the last Florida loophole, we turned our backs on our mayors, our police officers and our communities fighting to curtail mindless crime and violence.

In my speech on the Senate floor, I pointed out that we could make a significant improvement in our gun laws by approving the sensible language that closed the Florida Loophole. By closing the loophole, we could prevent guns from getting into the hands of those who would do us harm. I also said that this reasonable position had the support of newspapers and editorialists from all over the state.

The fight here in Harrisburg to keep guns out of the hands of bad people and out of our communities is far from over. Our work on gun control is not finished. We need a full and complete debate on gun issues such as limiting purchases to one-gun-per-month, reporting lost and stolen guns and controlling the straw purchase of weapons.

Several years ago, I was honored to serve on the governor’s Commission to Address Gun Violence. Our commission examined all gun issues and made a thorough report. We need to look again at the findings of our commission’s report and adopt meaningful and far-reaching gun legislation that prevents gun crime.

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