I Will Defend the Constitution

January 31, 11:42 PM DC Gun Rights Examiner Mike Stollenwerk
http://www.examiner.com/x-2782-DC-Gun-Rights-Examiner~y2010m1d31-Pennsyl...

In July of 2009, the Pennsylvania State Police (PSP) mysteriously told federal gun dealers doing business in Pennsylvania that they were required to report to the PSP all purchasers' identity and item serial number information for transfers of certain long gun "frames" or "receivers" for guns such as the popular AR-15 rifle, just like Pennsylvania's Uniform Firearms Act (UFA) requires for handguns. Some gun dealers told the State Police "no way," noting that compliance with the State Police demarche constituted a criminal violation of the UFA.

For months gun owners and gun rights organizers protested that the State Police were trying to carry out "registration" of items that were essentially just the guts of long guns, not subject to transfer reporting like handguns under the UFA. As a legal matter in Pennsylvania, gun "registration" is unlawful, but the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in Allegheny County Sportsmens' League v. Rendell ruled that the reports of transfer for handguns (mandated by the UFA) are not technically "registration" because

"the database at issue is not a registry of ownership, but rather, merely reflects the applications/records of sale for handgun purchases that occur in Pennsylvania. The database does not maintain a record of all firearms owned by Pennsylvanians, which would include long guns, or firearms that are owned by Pennsylvanians, but not purchased in the Commonwealth. Additionally, the database of handgun sales does not include handguns that are transferred between spouses, parents and children, and grandparents and grandchildren. See 18 Pa.C.S. § 6111(c). Nor is the database a survey of existing ownership. The database maintained by the Commonwealth merely contains information regarding the sales of handguns in the Commonwealth. Such a database does not amount to a "registry of firearm ownership" as prohibited by the Firearms Act."

Very few states record data about any gun transfers and many Pennsylvania gun owners object to the State Police keeping this information after background checks have been completed. Some also claim that police officers in the field often erroneously treat the database as a registration database and unlawfully confiscate handguns from their owners if the handgun is not associated with the carrier in the transfer database. If the PSP's effort to register long guns were not stopped say gun rights organizers, some police officers might confiscate long guns too.

Enter Rich Banks, a federal gun dealer in Mountain Top, PA. Banks posted last week to the popular gun rights forum run by the Pennsylvania Firearms Owners Association that he literally taunted the State Police for months trying to get them to take some action against him so that he could have legal standing to sue them over what Bank's felt was an illegal mandate:

"I was in contact with PICS regularly through this ordeal, until they refused to talk to me anymore. And told them I would not be complying with their unfounded demand. I was also involved with other dealers/retail entities that shall remain nameless (at their request) in an effort to file a legal challenge. . . . So in order to gain legal standing, we . . . were recording (video/audio) a virgin receiver transfer, sans SP4-113, with commentary about how dealers would properly execute a rcvr transfer. This instructional video and evidence of my refusal to follow PSP/PICS edict was to be posted publicly as a challenge (more like dare) the PSP to charge me, revoke my license (which they can't) or cut me off from PICS like they threatened others with. Had they cut me off from PICS I would have legal standing to sue. We were literally days away from releasing this challenge."

But while Banks and a loose network of gun dealer allies were in a tense standoff with the PSP, essentially yelling "molon labe" (Greek for the "come and get them," allegedly shouted in 280 BC at the Persian Army by Spartan King Leonidas at the Battle of Thermopylae when the Persians demanded that they put down their weapons), another source of pressure was being exerted on the PSP. Just as the Greek navy led by a politician named Themistocles pressured the Persians at sea while Leonidas held them back on land, the Potter Leader-Enterprise reports that Representative Martin Causer (R - Cameron, Mckean, and Potter Counties) fired volleys of "sharp letters" at the Pennsylvania State Police Commissioner, Colonel Frank E. Pawlowski, demanding to know why Pawlowski did an end-run around both the Legislature and Attorney General to enact a de facto long gun registration rule.

And a few days ago, without fanfare, the PSP quietly rescinded their July 2009 rule by way of its January 2010 Pennsylvania Gun Dealer Newsletter.

What's left to do now? According to Banks, the State Police must "destroy the records collected by the illegal edict."