Bills that aimed to ban bump stocks and establish an electronic gun sale registry were not successful in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives on Tuesday.
The proposals narrowly failed to pass by just one vote in the lower chamber. Critics argued that both proposals violated the Second Amendment and that the ban on bump stocks duplicated existing federal law.
“I grasp the concerns surrounding gun violence,” expressed House Minority Leader Bryan Cutler, a representative from Quarryville. “I comprehend the inclination to assign blame to an inanimate object, as this bill attempts to do, but I firmly believe it will not yield the desired results.”
House Bill 335 provides a clear definition of accelerated trigger activators, or bump stocks. According to the bill, these are “a part or combination of parts” that allow a semi-automatic weapon, which typically requires a trigger pull for each round fired, to function like a machine gun, which does not.
In 2019, the National Firearms Act made bump stocks illegal following a tragic incident at a Las Vegas outdoor concert. This event resulted in the loss of 60 lives and caused injuries to numerous individuals. The authorities discovered that the perpetrator had equipped fourteen weapons with these devices in his hotel room.
According to supporters, the federal law falls short when it comes to prosecuting offenders in Pennsylvania.
House Majority Leader Matt Bradford, a Democrat from Lansdale, highlighted the limitation of local district attorneys when it comes to prosecuting federal crimes. “Here’s the little rub,” he emphasized. “Let me tell you something, local DA’s can’t prosecute federal crimes.”
House Bill 2206 mandates that gun dealers must transmit electronic records of gun sales to the state police, instead of using paper documents as currently required by law.
Supporters argue that implementing such a measure provides law enforcement with a crucial means to track firearms discovered at crime scenes. On the other hand, critics contend that this approach exposes owners’ personal information and infringes upon their constitutional rights.