Pennsylvania House Passes Universal Background Check Bill

The Pennsylvania House of Representatives has passed a measure requiring so-called “universal” background checks for gun purchases in the Keystone State.

Passed by a 104-to-99 margin, this bill would outlaw the private sale of long guns unless firearm purchasers get government permission first. It would also set the stage for a registry in Pennsylvania for all firearms transactions, just like there already is for handguns.

Notably, five Republicans—Joe Hogan, Kristen Marcell (who later changed her vote to NO, but that did not affect the final vote), K.C. Tomlinson, Martina White and Craig Williams—voted in favor of the measure. Had they voted for the rights of Pennsylvania gun owners, the measure would have failed 103-100.

The pro-gun rights group Gun Owners of America (GOA) was quick to decry passage of the measure.

“Friend, the only thing standing between Pennsylvania and the kind of extreme anti-gun laws seen in New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland is a narrow pro-gun Republican majority in the State Senate,” a GOA news alert stated. “If that firewall breaks, our Second Amendment rights could fall with it… Let your senator know that anti-gun legislation should never see the light of day.”

Predictably, anti-gun Democrats in the Pennsylvania House were gleeful after passage of the measure, which they say will make background checks “consistent, comprehensive and effective.” State Rep. Perry Warren, who introduced the bill, claimed it would save lives and referred to private gun sales—common since the founding of our nation—as a “loophole.”

“Pennsylvania has been averaging 1,600 firearm deaths a year, and most of the high-profile mass shootings in Pennsylvania and nationally have been committed with long guns,” Rep. Warren said in a news release from the Pennsylvania Democratic Caucus. “There is no rational reason for the long gun loophole to continue, and this bill will deter and hopefully prevent acts of gun violence.”

In reality, so-called “universal” background checks don’t prevent violent criminals from killing people because the checks are only “universal” for lawful gun purchasers. Criminals can get guns in any illegal way they choose. Consequently, such laws put law-abiding citizens at a disadvantage to violent criminals.

As NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) explained, every dealer transaction in the country—including Pennsylvania—already must pass a background check.

“This bill does not keep guns out of the hands of criminals,” NRA-ILA said in a news item on its website. “This type of legislation results in more costly, bureaucratic red tape. The Commonwealth’s PICS check is also notorious for lengthy delays, denying purchasers with an urgent self-defense need.”