Gun debate revives in Pennsylvania statehouse

HARRISBURG >> The debate over guns was revived Tuesday in Pennsylvania’s Republican-controlled Legislature after a year of shocking violence, although Democrats went away frustrated and warning the process could end up actually loosening gun laws.

The day marked the start of a two-day Senate committee hearing on gun violence and a slate of House committee votes on gun-related legislation that drew some votes from Democrats, but also left untouched bills they have made their top priorities.

The House Judiciary Committee unanimously advanced legislation to more swiftly take away guns from someone who was involuntarily committed for mental health treatment, changing the period from 60 days to 48 hours.

However, another bill that passed the committee — to make it harder and more expensive for municipalities to defend their firearms ordinances against lawsuits — swiftly drew a veto threat from Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf.

The committee’s agenda did not include bills favored by Democrats and a handful of Republicans, including expanding background checks, requiring gun owners to report lost or stolen firearms, and empowering relatives or police to seek the immediate, if temporary, seizure of someone’s firearms.

After the hearing, Democrats got more unfavorable news.

“We don’t have any intention of addressing further gun control measures this session,” said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rob Kauffman, R-Franklin.

Kauffman framed the slate of bills his committee passed as comprehensive in addressing weaknesses in how Pennsylvania keeps guns out of the hands of dangerous people without treading on gun ownership rights.

The committee also passed several bills to expand penalties for suspects committing crimes with guns, including reinstating mandatory minimums that had been struck down by courts as unconstitutional because Pennsylvania law had let judges, not juries, impose them using a lower standard of evidence.

Across the statehouse, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairwoman Lisa Baker, RLuzerne, said she hoped the door would remain open in the House to gun control bills, and said her committee had heard compelling testimony about behavioral health treatment.

In a statement, Wolf said he was frustrated by Kauffman’s stand against further votes on gun control legislation and urged Kauffman to reconsider.

“As citizens across Pennsylvania demand gun safety action, the chairman is going in the opposite direction,” Wolf said.

The action follows rising gun violence in Philadelphia, which has brought calls for action, and last month’s wounding of six city police officers in a standoff with a suspect whose long criminal record barred him from legally owning a gun.

It is also 11 months removed from the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history and Pennsylvania’s worst mass shooting in at least decades, when a gunman who authorities say expressed anti-Semitic hatred killed 11 people in Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue.

Pennsylvania’s Legislature is historically protective of gun rights, and a year ago passed its first anti-violence legislation in more than a decade that dealt directly with firearms. That bill forces people with a domestic violence ruling against them to more quickly surrender their guns.

Democrats remained hopeful that the Senate would still advance some sort of gun-control measure in the coming months.

Among those testifying Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee were two emergency room physicians, Dr. Zoe Maher of Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia and Dr. Raquel Forsythe of UPMC Presbyterian in Pittsburgh.