WHEREAS, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has identified firearm¹ injury as “an extremely serious health concern;”² and

WHEREAS, firearms-related injuries became the leading cause of death among people aged 1-19 in the U.S. in 2020, according to CDC data;³ and

WHEREAS, the Philadelphia Bar Association has supported efforts to curb possession of handguns by minors and supported the extension of the federal ban on semi-automatic assault weapons in a resolution adopted by the Board of Governors on June 24, 2004; and

WHEREAS, 1,600 Pennsylvanians lose their lives to gun violence each year and 3,000 more are injured;⁴ and

WHEREAS, Pennsylvania saw a 45% rise in gun homicides between 2019 and 2020;⁵ and

WHEREAS, suicide by firearm accounts for 62% of overall gun deaths, or more than 900 Pennsylvanians on average each year⁶; and

WHEREAS, community violence (shootings involving unrelated individuals generally outside of the home) ends the life of more than 600 Pennsylvanians on average every year; and

WHEREAS, in 2020, there was a mass shooting, defined as four or more people being shot at one event, every 12 days in Pennsylvania;⁷ and

WHEREAS, 43 people were killed by domestic violence in Philadelphia in 2021 which more than doubles the number of domestic violence homicides from the year before, and is the largest annual number documented to date;⁸ and

WHEREAS, 13 out of the 18 domestic violence related homicides in Philadelphia through July 2022 have been by firearm;⁹ and

WHEREAS, in Philadelphia, between 2018 to 2021, out of the 116 total domestic violence homicides, gunshot wound was the cause of death in 68.1% of the homicides;¹⁰ and

WHEREAS, in 2021 Pennsylvania gun owners reported more lost and stolen guns than any other year since 2011, an increase of 38% above 2019, and that number does not reflect the significant number of guns that go missing and are not reported;¹¹ and

WHEREAS, the lack of a mandatory lost or stolen firearms reporting law allows legal gun purchasers to more easily buy weapons for individuals who cannot legally own a firearm, including violent felons and domestic abusers; and

WHEREAS, states with lost or stolen firearm reporting requirements have seen a significant decrease in traced illegal gun movement compared to states without such a law;¹² and

WHEREAS, Pennsylvanians' safety would benefit from a law that requires individuals to report lost or stolen firearms soon after discovering them missing; and

WHEREAS, Pennsylvania does not currently provide for Extreme Risk Protection Orders, often known as red flag laws, that allow law enforcement or family members to file a civil petition with the court to have firearms temporarily removed; and

WHEREAS, 19 states including the neighboring states of New Jersey, Delaware, and New York have enacted Extreme Risk laws; and

WHEREAS, one life is saved for every 10-20 gun removals under Extreme Risk Protection Orders¹⁴; and

WHEREAS, Pennsylvania has no requirement to secure firearms in a safe or with a gun lock and more than half of gun owners do not keep all of their firearms in safe storage;¹⁵ and

WHEREAS, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that guns be stored unloaded, separate from ammunition, and locked because minors' easy access to guns pose a significant risk to themselves and their communities;¹⁶ and

WHEREAS, assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazines were disproportionately used in public mass shootings and the five deadliest mass shooting incidents in the U.S., between 2009 and 2020, all involved assault-style weapons and/or high-capacity magazines;¹⁷ and

WHEREAS, in 56% of mass shootings, the shooter exhibited dangerous warning signs before the shooting;¹⁸ and

WHEREAS, a loophole in Pennsylvania's background check system allows the purchase of semi-automatic military style assault rifles and other long guns from private sellers without a background check; and

WHEREAS, states with stronger gun laws have 63% fewer mass shootings, on average, than those with weaker laws;¹⁹ and

WHEREAS, the Pennsylvania General Assembly passed a pre-emption law that prevents local jurisdictions from enacting gun safety regulations to protect their communities;²⁰ and

WHEREAS, gun violence costs Pennsylvania $21.7 billion each year, $470 million of which is paid by taxpayers;²¹ and

WHEREAS, the first Pennsylvania poll on gun violence prevention since the Uvalde, Texas school shooting revealed a deepening commitment to addressing gun violence among likely voters, with 58% of likely voters now more likely to support stronger gun safety laws;²² and

WHEREAS, on June 25, 2022, President Biden signed into law a bipartisan gun safety bill, the first gun safety law to pass with bipartisan support at the federal level in decades; and

WHEREAS, on June 23, 2022, a coalition of 80 local elected officials, community leaders, public health professionals, and faith leaders, as well as members of the veteran, law enforcement, and education communities from across Pennsylvania, urged the House Local Government Committee to schedule a hearing on four gun violence prevention bills that would create Extreme Risk Protection Orders (House Bill 1903), empower local governments to act on gun safety (House Bill 1538), require secure storage of firearms in the home (House Bill 699), and ban assault weapons (House Bill 770); and

WHEREAS, daily news reports of firearm violence document the devastating impact of gun violence on Philadelphia and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania;²³ and

WHEREAS, the elimination of preemption provisions would allow local communities to enact legislation tailored to protect their residents from gun violence;

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Philadelphia Bar Association supports federal and state legislation consistent with Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution to:

• Establish safe storage requirements;
• Create extreme risk protection orders;
• Ban assault weapons;
• Require a background check for every firearm sale;
• Mandate the reporting of lost or stolen firearms; and
• Authorize local communities to enact life-saving gun safety policies; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Chancellor or the Chancellor's designee is authorized to communicate the position of this Association to the members of the General Assembly of Pennsylvania, the Governor of Pennsylvania, the United States Congress, the legal community, the media and the public, and to take such other action in furtherance of this resolution as may be deemed necessary.

PHILADELPHIA BAR ASSOCIATION
BOARD OF GOVERNORS
ADOPTED: September 29, 2022

¹ This Resolution uses the term firearms to refer to guns and firearms. Federal definitions of guns and firearms are at 26 U.S. Code § 5845 Pennsylvania definitions of firearms and guns are at: https://casetext.com/regulation/pennsylvania-code-rules-and-regulations/title-37-law/part-i-state-police/chapter-33-procedures-and-specifications-for-firearm-record-forms-under-the-uniform-firearms-act/general/section-33102-definitions

² https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/firearms/fastfact.html

³ https://www.nichd.nih.gov/about/org/od/directors_corner/prev_updates/gun-violence-July2022

⁴ Much of the data and language included herein is drawn from CeaseFirePA's website at https://www.ceasefirepa.org/. For recent Philadelphia statistics, see: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/11/us/philadelphia-gun-violence-shootings.html.

⁵ A Year in Review 2020 Gun Deaths in the U.S., The Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions, April 28, 2022, available at https://publichealth.jhu.edu/sites/default/files/2022-05/2020-gun-deaths-in-the-us-4-28-2022-b.pdf.

⁶ The highest rate of suicide deaths by firearm in Pennsylvania is by 50-65-year-old men in rural communities. See: Linda Carroll, “Firearms most lethal suicide method by far in the U.S.”, Reuters, Dec. 2, 2019, at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-suicide-guns/firearms-most-lethal-suicide-method-by-far-in-the-u-s-idUSKBN1Y62FD.

⁷ Gun Violence Archive, https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/query/cf6da1ed-5082-498d-b7fa-24e92689de11?page=1. Accessed July 29, 2022.

⁸ Everytown analysis of CDC, National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS) 2019.

⁹Id.

¹⁰Id.

¹¹ Mensah M. Dean and Dylan Purcell, “A rising tide of stolen guns helps fuel Philadelphia's gun violence epidemic,” The Inquirer, Dec. 23, 2021, at https://www.inquirer.com/news/stolen-guns-philadelphia-violence-20211223.html.

¹² Kahane LH. (2012, May 24). Understanding the interstate export of crime guns: A gravity model approach. Contemporary Economic Policy, 31(3): 618-34. Retrieved January 19, 2022 from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1465-7287.2012.00324.

¹³ https://americanhealth.jhu.edu/implementERPO

¹⁴ Jeffrey W. Swanson, et al., “Implementation and Effectiveness of Connecticut's Risk-based Gun Removal Law: Does it Prevent Suicides.” Law & Contemporary Problems 80, (2017): 179-208; Jeffrey W. Swanson, et al., “Criminal Justice and Suicide Outcomes with Indiana's Risk-Based Gun Seizure Law.” The Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law (2019).

¹⁵ https://giffords.org/lawcenter/state-laws/safe-storage-in-pennsylvania/

¹⁶ https://www.aap.org/en/news-room/campaigns-and-toolkits/gun-safety/

¹⁷ https://everytownresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2020/07/EFGV02_Assault-Weapons-and-High-Capacity-Magazines_Rd2_6-1.pdf

¹⁸ https://everytownresearch.org/maps/mass-shootings-in-america/#:~:text=Mass%20shootings%20result%20in%20an,not%20yet%20available%20for%202018

¹⁹ https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/20/us/everytown-weak-gun-laws-high-gun-deaths-study/index.html

²⁰ S6120(a): https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/LI/consCheck.cfm?txtType=HTM&ttl=18&div=0&chpt=61

²¹ https://everystat.org/#Pennsylvania

²² https://www.thirdway.org/polling/pennsylvania-voters-support-gun-safety-reforms

²³ As of August 12, 2022, “1,149 people had been shot this year in Philadelphia and there were 338 homicides — 3% more than the same date last year, which ended in a record 562 homicides.” https://www.inquirer.com/news/philadelphia/philadelphia-shooting-frankford-20220812.html