Today I am calling upon Attorney General  Tom Corbett to start leading the effort to reduce death by gunfire in Pennsylvania by implementing via attorney general regulation a requirement that all lost and/or stolen handguns be reported to law enforcement within a reasonable amount of time of discovery.

One of the most serious  public safety issues facing all of our  communities, death by gunfire, has been all but ignored by the current  Attorney General. While the Pennsylvania legislature, Governor Rendell, mayors of our communities, and law enforcement organizations like  the Pennsylvania State Police,  the Pennsylvania Chiefs of Police Association and individual police departments and officers strive to address this issue, Attorney General Corbett  sits on the sidelines conspicuously absent from the debate.  While thousands of Pennsylvanians, including police officers and children die each year because of a proliferation of handguns into the hands of criminals, young children and the mentally ill, Tom Corbett remains silent.  The statistics are staggering.       * Pennsylvania ranks #6 in the nation for hand-gun homicides involving children.
* Nearly 500 children and teens each year are killed in the US in gun related accidents.     *  Pennsylvania consistently leads  the nation in African-American homicide victims. Approximately 80% of those homicides are committed with handguns.      *  Pennsylvania is the #1 source state for recovered crime guns in Camden and Trenton, New Jersey, and is a bigger source for crime guns recovered in New York City than the State of New York itself.    * In Pennsylvania, death by gunfire is responsible for the deaths of approximately 1200 people each year. 
*There are about 34,000 gun related deaths each year in the US. ·  *Over 80% of the killings in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh are committed with handguns, most often by people with criminal records who are unable to purchase handguns from a licensed dealer—they instead buy them illegally. ·   * In Pennsylvania in 2006, guns were used in 563 homicides, 5981 aggravated assaults, and 8,907 robberies- most by people who could not lawfully purchase a gun. ·   *And, this is not just a problem in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. In all our cities, from Erie to Butler, to Harrisburg, to Lancaster, Reading, the Lehigh Valley, Doylestown,  Norristown, Chester and Media and more, too many guns are in the hands of criminals, the young, and those with mental illness.    In 2006, PCCD Chairman Walter M. Phillips, Jr.  told the Pennsylvania Chiefs of Police Association, “…We (Pennsylvania) have become a haven for  gun traffickers.” He also noted that Pennsylvania received a grade of D+ for reducing gun violence in 2005. Despite all of the aforesaid, there continues to be a stalemate in terms of seriously addressing the issue.   The debate over firearms  has been a polarizing one for many years. Gun control advocates  tend to want to ban all guns and portray their owners as rednecks who don’t seem to care that criminals can get their hands on firepower. At the other extreme, an entrenched gun lobby appears to believe that any regulations on guns are a threat to their constitutional rights. The anti-gun movement must accept the fact that the United States will not, and should not, have to abolish handguns or any other firearms. At the same time, the pro-gun advocates have to acknowledge that the Second Amendment, like all other amendments, is not unconditional. The fact is that millions of law-abiding people possess firearms, and use them lawfully for sport, hobby and personal security without incident. As District Attorney for 16 years, I have supported the right to carry a concealed weapon with a permit, and the right to use deadly force if necessary to protect one’s life or the life of another. And, I have opposed misguided efforts to sue gun manufacturers and to require law abiding citizens to register their guns with the government.  But another fact is that too often criminals, mentally disturbed individuals, and children come into possession of firearms with tragic and devastating results    The fact is that the majority of people want a balanced approach. They want to know what can be done to make our schools and communities more secure; they want to know what can be done to assure that criminals,  the mentally disturbed and children do not possess firearms; and they want to know what strategies can be employed to reduce death by gunfire.  They also want to know that the law will punish criminals and those individuals who have demonstrated that they are incapable of owning and operating firearms responsibly.  And, they want to know how this can all be done without trampling on the Second Amendment.   Today, I am here to tell you that we CAN take guns out of the hands of criminals, children and the mentally ill WITHOUT disarming law-abiding citizens. To do so we have to be both smart and tough. It is no longer acceptable to fall back on the old cliché that  we don’t have to do anything but enforce existing gun laws. The fact is we do enforce existing gun laws. Every day  across Pennsylvania gun laws are enforced by District Attorneys and police. But we need to do more. It is obvious that what we are doing currently is not working. Every day there are more police officers, children and others killed or seriously injured by handguns in the hands of criminals, children and the mentally ill. And, we cannot be deterred by gun lobbies that try to scare gun owners into believing that all new ideas to curb gun violence represents  a threat to take guns away from law abiding citizens. One of the problems is that we have had absolutely no leadership from the Pennsylvania Attorney General. For 28 years, Republicans have controlled the OAG and have remained silent, passively supporting the blocking of any real action on gun violence. Attorney General Corbett takes his marching orders  from the NRA who contributes thousands of dollars to his campaign.   We need an AG who will provide leadership to advance an agenda that will assist law enforcement in the investigation of gun crime, and hamper criminals, the mentally disturbed, and children from obtaining firearms, and protect our police officers who are becoming more and more the targets of  guns wrongfully in the hands of criminals. 

One of the ways to do this is to require that lost or stolen guns be reported to law enforcement within a reasonable amount of time of learning that a firearm is missing or misplaced.

The Pennsylvania Attorney General  has broad power and authority over adopting consumer protection regulations. The legislative intent of the UTPCPL  is to enhance the protection of the public from both unfair and deceptive  business practices. See Valley Forge Towers et al v. Ron- Ike Foam Insulators 574 A2d 641,644 ( Pa. Super, 1990), ( citing Gabriel v. O'Hara 534 A2d 488,491.

It has been held that the UTPCPL must be construed liberally.  See Com. v. Monumental Props Inc 329 A2d 812, 815-17 (

It is clear that the Attorney General can mandate that purchasers of guns be required to report a lost or stolen gun to law enforcement within a reasonable time of learning about it. Such a requirement is not in any manner an infringement on the Second Amendment; it is also not making law abiding citizens criminals. Every law abiding citizen, gun owner I know wants to make sure that a lost or stolen gun does not end up in the wrong hands and already reports such matters to the police. This requirement will only make it uncomfortable for those  who sell  their guns to criminals and then later claim that the gun was lost or stolen.  

So, today, I ask Attorney General Tom Corbett to begin the process to adopt regulations that would do the following: