Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)

Wolf calls for tougher gun laws after synagogue shooting

- By Marc Levy

HARRISBURG, PA. >> With family members of gun violence victims by his side, Gov. Tom Wolf renewed his call Tuesday for lawmakers to toughen Pennsylvan­ia’s gun laws, now three months after a truck driver walked into a Pittsburgh synagogue and fatally shot 11 people.

The anti-gun violence rally with Wolf comes at the start of the Republican­controlled Legislatur­e’s new two-year session, and as a top Republican lawmaker suggested that agreement might be found on mental health interventi­ons, rather than gun control.

The shooting in the Tree of Life synagogue is deemed to be the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history, and anti-violence advocates cannot recall a deadlier modernday mass shooting in Pennsylvan­ia.

Wolf, a Democrat, has long supported a wide range of gun-control and anti-violence measures, and told the rally crowd in the Capitol’s Rotunda that gun violence is unacceptab­le as an everyday part of American life. Pennsylvan­ia’s lawmakers and Congress must act, he said.

“It is not just synagogues in Pittsburgh that are at risk,” Wolf said. “It’s churches in Lancaster, it’s mosques in Allentown, it’s schools in Erie, it’s movie theaters in Johnstown, it’s concert halls in Philadelph­ia, colleges in Scranton and even streets in Harrisburg.”

Among those joining Wolf was Jo Schlesinge­r, whose ex-husband was badly wounded in Oct. 27’s synagogue shooting, and a Pittsburgh trauma surgeon, Dr. Raquel Forsythe, who helped treat the victims of that shooting.

Last year was something of a breakthrou­gh for the state Legislatur­e, which is historical­ly protective of gun rights.

After years of lobbying by violence-prevention groups, lawmakers passed a bill to force people in Pennsylvan­ia with a domestic violence ruling against them to more quickly surrender their guns.

Wolf signed it in October, making it Pennsylvan­ia’s first anti-violence legislatio­n in more than a decade that deals directly with firearms.

A bill already introduced in the Legislatur­e’s new session would expand background checks on firearms in Pennsylvan­ia and end an exception for private sales of shotguns, sporting rifles and semi-automatic rifles, known as the “gun show” loophole.

Other bills expected to be introduced would ban assault weapons and limit magazine capacity. Another would create an “extreme risk protection order” that allows a law enforcemen­t officer, a family member or a household member to petition a judge to order the immediate, if temporary, seizure of someone’s firearms.

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