Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell recently attempted to get some traction on gun control, including a measure requiring gun owners to report a lost or stolen gun. What are the practical effects of such a measure that gun owners fear? Stigmatization? Prosecution for losing too many firearms? Having their names associated in with instruments of crime if the gun turns up in a robbery, assault, murder, etc?
I don’t understand why a gun owner would fear reporting their gun lost or stolen. In fact, it would be my priority to do so as to not link me to any crime in which the gun was used. Has Pennsylvania had the oposite effect or something? Gun owners do not want to report it?
I get the impression that currently there is not a law on the books requiring this. I’m wondering how we went this long without such a law. I gather that a lot of states don’t require this.
Link:
http://www.citizensvoice.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=19056233&BRD=2259&PAG=461&dept_id=455154&rfi=6
I’m not familiar with Pennsylvania politics, but this sounds like pointless election-year posturing over a mostly symbolic proposal.
If the gun owning members of the Pennsylvania populace are bothered by it (the linked article only discusses the politicians’ stances, AFAICT) I suspect it’s because they view any new legislation concerning firearms as a step in the direction of abolition. Just my guess, though.
Two reasons I frequently hear:
-
Reluctance to draw police attention on you for owning a gun for any reason, as gun owners, even law-abiding ones, have become more and more stigmatized in society today. When you couple this with the support of the Fraternal Order of Police for many (most?) gun control laws, provided there’s the out for “retired” cops, pretty much all gun owners I know stopped viewing the police as “friends and compatriots” in the shooting sports back in 1980’s.
-
Fear of opening oneself up to liability if a crime or injury is committed with the gun. Since it’s likely in Pennsylvania most guns are not traceable easily to a specific person, not reporting the theft may mean that you protect yourself from the inevitable hungry trial lawyers looking to sue you on behalf of someone.
I would of course report a theft of one of my guns. But I think most of the gun owners I know IRL would really be reluctant to, unless it was a gun that was so valuable they wanted to claim insurance on it.
How the hell do you “lose” a gun??
It happens. It’s usually through carelessness. For example, haven’t you ever put something on top of your car, forgotten about it, and driven off? That has happened with guns on more than one occasion.
Gun owners usually report their guns stolen or missing because it’s the right thing to do. What these laws often times try to do is criminalize that mistake by putting a time limit on it. If you don’t realize that the gun is missing and there is a 24-hour report time by statute on such a report, when you go to inform the police but you haven’t seen your gun for three days because you didn’t know it was missing, by the letter of the law you have committed a crime. That sort of thing is what is at issue, not reporting a loss per se.
Why would you say guns aren’t traceable to a specific person? Aren’t they required to be registered? Obviously, unregistered guns would not be traceable and reporting the theft of an unregistered gun would open the owner up to legal trouble for not having registered it. But it doesn’t sound like that’s at issue.
Also, are the laws really written so that they don’t take into account not knowing when the loss or theft took place? That sounds improbable to me. I can see gun owners not wanting the time limit because they want to handle it on their own timeframe, or want to make sure it wasn’t taken or misplaced by a wayward family member, but are the laws really written so as to require you to report something before you know it happened? :dubious:
The question you should be asking, why does he want to criminalize this act?
In most states there is no requirement for registration.
That’s the thing. Nobody knows how these laws will be enforced. A strict reading of a law with a specified time period makes no exception for recognition of the loss. Gun owners are naturally afraid of being put away for a mistake, and given the political nature of gun ownership it is feared that such laws will be used to make examples out of people.
This would be my best guess – and more related to civil liability rather than criminal liability. Your gun is lost or stolen, ends up used in a shooting, and the victim’s family comes after you. “Did you lock it up? Did it have a trigger lock, or was it in a gun safe? WHAT… you just left it at the shooting range one day?”
I can see not wanting to face a multi-million dollar negligence or wrongful death lawsuit.
What possible use could such a law have?
Penn. registers every handgun sale through the state police. My guess is that if your wife was found shot dead with a 9mm round and according to the database, you were the last purchaser of a 9mm pistol. Cops get a warrant and ask to see it. You reply: It was stolen/I lost it last month.
Blam. You didn’t report it, off to jail you go.
Without the law: They probably know you are lying, but how can they prove it? You get off scot free
I hate how the law could potentially trap a law abiding citizen: I mean, a gun owner would be foolish NOT to report his gun lost/stolen especially if he purchased the gun new. They will trace that gun to you even if your state doesn’t register guns
I’ve bought other guns through other states–and legally. I was a resident of those states at the time, and have moved several time since. I have yet to sell a firearm. Therefore, I have several legally, ‘undocumented’ firearms in my home. I also have gifts from my parents. Bottom line: I have legally purchased or procured firearms from New Jersey, North Dakota, Montana, Arizona, and Georgia.
I am a gun-control advocate’s nightmare. And rightfully so. I want them to fear me and my vote, because I am a responsible, lawful firearms owner. Regardless of how I got them, I legally have them.
Further, I realize that firearms are tools, and as such, are not directly responsible for what they do–they express the intent of whoever handles them. By God, the first minute I realized any one of them were stolen, I would be on 911 to the police to report a stolen firearm with make, model, and serial number–I abhor the thought that one of my firearms was stolen and used in a crime to hurt or kill someone else. I’m a responsible person, and I won’t allow my tools to be used by those less skilled or responsible, be it a hammer, power drill, or .40SW.
Tripler
Guns don’t kill people, people do.
This I’d have to politely disagree–read my previous post. I’ve acquired some shotguns and rifles through private sales. There simply is no official documentation. The only thing at that point that could trace a firearm are citizens documentation which could be specious at best (at times).
The state(s) simply cannot effectively account for every single firearm in it’s borders, and to me, personally, this renders gun control ineffective.
Tripler
Yeah, I have to admit, it’s that simple to me.
I agree, and I am not in favor of the law. But it would (maybe) help solve a few murders (in PA, with the handgun log).
With the private sale route, you would eliminate a lot of the traces that the feds have, and that’s why the agressive “close the gun show loophole” nonsense has come to light.
PA can pass this law, and then next year complain that there is a “loophole” because of people like you.
For me, when I sell a gun, I get name and address from the buyer. I don’t want the cops showing up at my door asking about a murder three states, or three streets over with a gun that I purchased originally.
I would say, “No sir, I sold that gun on 2/21/02 to John Q. Smith of 123 Main Street, Anywhere, USA for $379.50” and haven’t seen it since…
jtgain, I really do think we’re on the same page. I have to admit, I haven’t read the OP’s laws, but just at the glance that the governor of Pennsylvania wants to make it illegal raises flags on my own personal grounds:
I have full faith and reason to believe that my weapons are under lock and key. I know where they are, and I know where I secured them last. When I come home from work to a secure house, I have no reason to believe that my weapons have been violated/stolen unless the door is off it’s hinge/lock plate. I simply don’t check my weapons on a daily or hourly basis because I don’t need to. Having read this thread, and being a responsible owner of any sort of property, I think it is prudent and responsible to report any stolen property, be it power drill to hand saw to 105mm Howitzer from the backyard.
Yet, you may feel a personal desire to report that stolen weapon, to protect yourself from the repercussions, or to notify the police to a ‘weapon at large’ to protect the public. But the fact that a law-abiding citizen may not realize that his guns were stolen (say, his son or wife took the guns and killed someone) puts the onus of reporting on the owner is to me, an undue requirement under any law.
I do agree with you though: a prudent individual would say that, “I sold my .357 GP100 to jtgain on 25 Nov 07. I have a cancelled check from him. Anything beyond that, go talk to him.” But to criminalize the failure to actively report smacks of a political-wannabe tough-guy.
Tripler
I have firearms. I’m not a criminal until I use them criminally.
They could of course couple the law with another law that exempts gun owners from civil liability when their stolen gun is used in a crime, provided they take swift and complete action to notify authorities as soon as they discover the theft. Think that the people pushing for the law will add that clause in? (crickets chirp…)
You actually provide a great example of my (and I assume other’s) ignorance: there’s criminal law, and civil law.
One being pretty firm and fair, the other nebulous. . . I would think it incumbent on any gun owner in any civilized nation to take into account either system.
Tripler
That’s where the ‘prudent’ comes into play. . .
If the theft is not reported, how does anyone know it happened?