Your Best B.E.T. for Gun Safety!
For the 2021-2022 legislative session, GunSenseUs is focusing its efforts on a three-part legislative agenda, Your Best B.E.T. for Gun Safety!
We are supporting:
B – A background check for every firearm purchase PA House Bill 235 | PA Senate Bill 88
E – “Extreme Risk” legislation, which gives families and law enforcement a tool to remove firearms temporarily from those whose behavior shows they may be a danger to self or others. PA House Bill 1903 | Senate Bill 134
T – One time Firearm Safety Education for gun purchasers. PA House Bill 1846, PA Senate Bill 855.
More about Your Best B. E. T. for Gun Safety!
B – Background Checks for Every Gun Purchase
In PA, individual gun owners and high volume private sellers can sell long guns (shot guns or rifles) directly to another person with no background check required. Long guns include semi-automatic rifles like the AR-15. These types of guns have been used in several mass shootings.
Every type of gun can be deadly. Background checks keep those who should not have guns from buying them. For more information: Background Check Overview
E – Extreme Risk Law
Imagine a gun owner has threatened to shoot you or kill themselves. You’ve heard there’s nothing the police can do to help. Fourteen states have now enacted Extreme Risk laws (in PA referred to as an Extreme Risk Protection Order or ERPO.)
With this tool, family or police can ask a court to temporarily remove guns from an individual posing a threat. See the attached file for more information about the Extreme Risk proposal: Extreme Risk Order Overview
T – Training before Firearm Purchase
Right now, you can go and buy a gun with no knowledge of gun types, gun law, safe handling, or safe storage.
Since 1982, PA has required hunters to pass a hunting safety certification to reduce hunting injury and death. 34,000 people a year get certified. Since training became required, unintentional shootings out hunting had decreased 87% by 2015.
We’d like PA to require a one-time firearm safety certification before gun purchase. Let’s improve safety for the gun owner and those around them. For more information click here: Safety_Education_10_28
For More Information on a Bill: http://www.legis.state.pa.us/
Have an opinion you want to express?
Find your PA state legislators here.
To contact a PA House member, click here , find the name, and click on the envelope image to the right. For a PA Senator, do the same here.
When you contact a legislator, consider what your brief message is (please support or please oppose and the Bill #), and what you are asking. You might consider the following:
1) Will the legislator co-sponsor or at a minimum support the bill? (Or, will they oppose the bill if that is your view.)
2) Will the legislator publish their position on their website and in their mass communications with constituents?
3) Will the legislator work to influence party leaders to bring the bill out of committee and to a vote on the floor?
Elected officials tell us that hearing from their constituents is a key consideration in their voting decisions.
The Pennsylvania Legislative Process
The link below provides a brief overview of the steps in the PA Legislative Process.
GunSenseUs 