Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Local pols back Wolf’s moves on gun control
HARRISBURG, PA. >> Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf directed state police and other agencies under his control Friday to focus greater efforts on addressing gun violence, two days after a gunman shot six Philadelphia police officers.
Wolf said set up a new Special Council on Gun Violence and gave it six months to recommend how to reduce mass shootings, domestic violence, suicides and accidental shootings.
He also established the Office of Gun Violence Prevention at the
Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and delinquency and a violence prevention division within the Health Department.
“I applaud him,” said state Sen. Tom Killion, R-9 of Middletown. “The governor worked closely with me last session. He was very helpful in getting the domestic abuse bill across the finish line and I think what he’s doing is a great thing.”
The announcement had been planned for Thursday but was rescheduled after the nearly eight-hour standoff in Philadelphia that left the officers with injuries not considered life-threatening. A suspect who fired at police from inside a building before finally surrendering has been arrested but not yet charged.
Wolf said state police will expand and support gun buy-back programs and increase monitoring of hate groups and white nationalists. His state police commissioner, Col. Robert Evanchick, said he will set up a task force to consider what steps to take regarding gun buy-back efforts.
The Office of Gun Violence Prevention will work to deter shootings in areas that have high rates of violence and coordinate the reporting of lost and stolen guns to police.
The governor’s office says more than 1,600 people died of gunshot wounds in Pennsylvania in 2017.
House Democratic Whip Jordan Harris, who represents a Philadelphia district, recounted how this year in his city there have been eight cases in which at least four people were shot — with victims who were walking down the street, waiting for takeout food, attending a graduation party and gathering to shoot a music video.
“I have to go home to a place where my life is not safe, and there’s far too many Pennsylvanians doing that on a daily basis,” Harris said, wiping back tears at Wolf’s Capitol news conference.
Wolf, a Democrat, also urged the Republican-controlled General Assembly to enact standards for safe gun storage, pass a “red flag” high-risk protection order bill and require statelevel universal background checks for gun buyers.
Killion is the author of the Senate version of the “red flag” bill and said it could act as a tool to remove guns from individuals exhibiting dangerous behavior before they execute a mass shooting. He added it is “loaded with due process” and does not criminally prosecute those who have their weapons temporarily removed. The bill does include a provision to prosecute those who might abuse the law with false allegations, he said.
Killion noted similar laws are already on the books in 17 states and the District of Columbia, and their popularity may have just gotten a boost with a mention from President Donald Trump.
State Sen. Tim Kearney, D-26 of Swarthmore, is a co-sponsor on Killion’s bill and agreed it is generally regarded as low-hanging fruit. What Wolf is proposing, he said, is a little more aggressive and aims at reaching a consensus through hearing the issues on Pennsylvanians’ minds and reacting to them.
“We see things like the shooting in Philadelphia where six police officers are shot and, number one, how did he get a gun, and number two, how did he get an AR-15?” Kearney said. “We keep hearing there’s laws that don’t work, but we have laws with giant loopholes in them and ways for people to get around them.”
State Rep. Leanne Krueger, D-161 of Swarthmore, a member of the Policy Committee, said no equivalent hearings are currently scheduled in the state House, but she believes joint hearings would be appropriate and supports the bills Wolf has called on the Legislature to pass.
“My very first policy hearing four years ago was on the topic of universal background checks and four years later we still haven’t been able to get that bill out of committee,” said Krueger.
Krueger said she believes the delay can be attributed to the outsized power special interest groups like the National Rifle Association and Firearms Owners Against Crime can bring to bear on her colleagues.
“There are over 2 dozen bills that have been introduced to address the issue of gun violence in Pennsylvania and not even one of them have gotten so much as a hearing this session,” she said. “If we could get these bills to the floor for a vote, many of them would likely pass, but the Speaker refuses to allow us to bring them up.”
Wolf signed an executive order flanked by activists and Democratic state lawmakers but was not joined by any Republican senators or representatives, a reflection of the polarized nature of gun issues in the politically divided General Assembly.
Sen. Lisa Baker, a Luzerne County Republican who chairs the Judiciary Committee, has scheduled a hearing for Sept. 24-25 on behavioral health, Second Amendment gun rights and related issues.
Baker said in a news release last week that all government officials should be looking for ways to end the plague of mass shootings.
“Taking symbolic steps sends a message, but it ultimately does not save lives,” Baker wrote. “Something unworkable or unenforceable or unable to withstand a legal challenge does not provide the real protection our constituents are demanding.”
State Rep. Jennifer O’Mara, D-165 of Springfield, said she was relieved to see the governor is approaching the issue from a more comprehensive stance that includes all types of gun violence, not just mass shootings.
O’Mara’s father, a career firefighter in Philadelphia, took his own life in 2003 when she was just 13 years old, so she said the issue of gun violence and the conversation about mental health have been both played large roles in her life.
“We’ve had a big conversation about gun violence in terms of mass shootings, but I think what we’re seeing in our area more is gun suicide,” she said. “Mass shootings are one thing that we have to deal with, but we also have to address other types of gun violence.”
O’Mara said she recently held a town hall in Springfield where attendees were asked to fill out a survey. They overwhelmingly checked “yes” on the need for universal background checks and extreme risk protection orders, she said, two things the governor mentioned specifically in his press release Friday.
House Republican spokesman Mike Straub said violent firearms offenses have fallen by nearly 40% in the state in the past 13 years.
He said the Pennsylvania firearm purchase background checks already exceed what is required by the federal government and argued the Philadelphia police shooting “proves once again that criminals will not follow changes we make to existing firearm laws.”
Kearney is hosting a bipartisan event at the Delaware County Intermediate Unit at 7 p.m. Tuesday, where he said community members, local elected officials and anti-violence groups will be able to engage in a free-flowing exchange of ideas.
“It’s a hard thing, people get very emotional about it,” Kearney said. “But a lot of these things are not really partisan. When people actually talk about them and people actually think about them, I think we can get something done.”