Monday, November 2, 2009

Reporting Lost or Stolen Guns in Pennsylvania

The Beaver County Times on-line reports on the growing movement of laws in Pennsylvania requiring reporting of lost or stolen guns.

Aliquippa Mayor Anthony Battalini wants to give his city’s police officers every possible tool available when it comes to stopping gun violence such as the recent shootings in the city’s Plan 12 neighborhood.

And he said he thinks an ordinance that requires residents to report lost or stolen firearms might be a good way to do just that.

“I have some questions about how it could be enforced, sure,” Battalini said. “But even if it gives our officers a heads-up about weapons that might be out there, it would have to help.”


What could possibly be the objection to something like this? The article goes on to say the NRA has been fighting this "in court and out." But we already knew that, didn't we? Doesn't it sometimes seem the pro-gun crowd will oppose any and all legislation concerning guns regardless of its merits? That's the way it seems to me. In this particular case though, there's another reason.

Even Battalini, whose city hasn’t formally considered a similar ordinance, has been the subject of an NRA campaign because he joined the state’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns coalition.

“I’m a gun owner, and I’d never do anything to take guns out of the hands of people who own them legally,” he said. “This doesn’t have anything to do with gun control, and it doesn’t have any effect on legal gun owners.

“The thing with the NRA is that they’re not the ones who have to talk to the mother of a kid who’s been killed by a gun,” Battalini said. “I’ve had to do that. Where is the NRA then?”


Joining the MAIG is generally enough to become a target of the NRA, even if you're a gun owner and supporter of the 2nd Amendment. The pro-gun folks sure are a contentious lot, they even like to fight among themselves.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

7 comments:

  1. I don't have a problem with the city creating a database of lost or stolen guns. I don't even have a problem with a campaign to promote its use and creating a hotline to report them.

    I have a problem with a law that criminalizes the victim of a crime.

    Beyond attaching a criminal penalty to these laws that penalize a victim, these laws rarely stop there. MikeB, you need to read these laws. They may promote it as a simple requirement to report lost or stolen guns but usually they contain more gun control like mandating storage, allowing police inspections, etc. I'm also curious why most of these laws have an exclusion for police officers. Are not their lost and stolen guns worth reporting?

    Finally, these laws do nothing to fight crime. The law does not solve any crime but does serve to create criminals out of otherwise non-criminal persons. You cannot use this law to charge a criminal from failing to report his illegally owned gun as stolen. The only people that can eve be charged under these offences are people that have never been convicted of a serious crime.

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  2. "“This doesn’t have anything to do with gun control, and it doesn’t have any effect on legal gun owners."

    Exact opposite actually.

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  3. MikeB,

    Stolen guns rarely show up in the newspaper, Can we conclude from that guns are rarely stolen then?

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  4. You do realize that passage of such an ordinance is illegal under state law right?

    Do you really expect anyone to abide by laws that are being passed illegally.

    Frankly if I were to be charged under said law I'd sue the city.

    Funny how you anti-gunners have no problem with breaking the law in pursuit of your agenda.

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  5. How could this be enforced without either registration or violating the fifth amendment? If your gun comes to the attention of the police, how can they determine whether you failed to report a theft, or sold it in a private transaction?

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  6. "I have a problem with a law that criminalizes the victim of a crime." - FWM

    And that's all that needs to be said.

    Lost or stolen ordinances rank right up there with penalizing rape victims for fornication/adultery. It's equally ass-backwards.

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  7. "Joining the MAIG is generally enough to become a target of the NRA, even if you're a gun owner and supporter of the 2nd Amendment."

    If you join MAIG, you may be a gun owner, but you're not a supporter of the 2nd Amendment.

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