Background Checks and Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania has closed the unlicensed sale loophole for handguns, requiring background checks on all handgun sales in the state. Felons, domestic abusers, and other people prohibited from owning guns attempt to buy them regularly in Pennsylvania—and are stopped because of a background check.

• Since 1998, more than 92,000 firearm sales to prohibited purchasers in Pennsylvania have been denied. Each year, the background check system blocks more than 4,000 illegal sales to convicted felons and over 1,000 illegal sales to domestic abusers.¹Karberg JC, Frandsen RJ, Durso JM, Buskirk TD, Lee AD. Bureau of Justice Statistics. Background checks for firearm transfers, 2015 – Statistical tables. https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/bcft15st.pdf. Data for 2016 through 2019 were obtained by Everytown from the FBI directly. Though the majority of the transactions and denials reported by FBI and BJS are associated with a firearm sale or transfer, a small number may be for concealed carry permits and other reasons not related to a sale or transfer.
• For decades, Pennsylvania has required a background check for all handgun sales.²1995 Pennsylvania House Bill 110. 
• The Pennsylvania State Police (PSP) is responsible for all background checks at the point of purchase, and PSP has been empowered to stop illegal gun purchases. 
  • Pennsylvania law addresses the Charleston Loophole, giving PSP more than three business days to complete a background check,³18 Pa.C.S. § 6111(b)(7), (b)(1.1)(iii). and allows PSP to submit prohibiting mental health records to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).⁴18 Pa.C.S. 6111.1(f). Indeed, as of December 2020, Pennsylvania had submitted nearly 950,000 prohibiting mental health records to NICS.⁵Federal Bureau of Investigation, Active Records in the NICS Indices by State, accessed February 22, 2021, https://bit.ly/3pOgwCZ.
  • PSP also notifies authorities when a prospective gun purchaser fails a background check, so police may investigate those illegal attempted purchases. 
• Pennsylvania has also served as a model in the concealed carry permitting arena, allowing authorities to deny permits when a person poses a danger to public safety.

Pennsylvania has closed the unlicensed sale loophole for handguns, meaning prohibited purchasers cannot skip a background check and acquire a handgun simply by seeking out an unlicensed seller at a gun show or online. But neighboring states have not closed this loophole and enable people from owning guns to take advantage of a thriving market for unlicensed sales and get handguns illegally. Dramatic research shows the scale of this gaping loophole, as the vast market for no-questions-asked online gun sales has soared during the COVID-19 pandemic.

• An investigation of the online gun market Armlist.com (“Armslist”) revealed a massive marketplace where unchecked gun sales are taking place between complete strangers meeting online, allowing criminals and other prohibited purchasers an easy avenue for access.
  • Each year, there are over 16,000 ads offering long guns for sale in Pennsylvania where no background check is legally required.⁶Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, “Unchecked: An Investigation of the Online Firearm Marketplace,” February 1, 2021, https://everytownresearch.org/unchecked. Assault-style rifles are excluded from this total.
• Throughout the pandemic, demand for guns from the online marketplace has dramatically increased. The surge in demand at gun stores has been well documented, but research shows the surge extends to sales that can take place with no background check. The average number of posts on Armslist between March and September 2020 by people across the US looking to purchase a firearm in states that do not require background checks on all sales doubled over the same period in 2019.⁷Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund,. “Undeniable: How Long-Standing Loopholes in the Background Check System Have Been Exacerbated by COVID-19,”. December 2020,. https://bit.ly/2M7E9ZJ.
• Background check laws make a difference in whether sellers will require a background check to complete a sale.  
  • Unlicensed sellers in states that have passed background check laws show a high degree of compliance—with 84 percent of sellers from states with background check laws directly stating the sale would need a check.⁸Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, “Unchecked.”
  • In contrast, only 6 percent of the unlicensed sellers in states without background check laws indicated they would require a background check on their sales.⁹Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, “Unchecked.” While Pennsylvania law requires a background check on all handgun sales, it does not require a background check on sales of all long guns by unlicensed sellers.  

Congress’s failure to close the unlicensed sale loophole nationally enables gun trafficking and the use of crime guns in Pennsylvania.

• Existing loopholes in the federal background check law are negatively impacting states, like Pennsylvania, that require background checks on all handgun sales. Research has shown that state laws requiring background checks for all handgun sales are associated with 48 percent lower rates of gun trafficking in cities and 29 percent lower rates of gun trafficking across state lines.¹⁰Webster DW, Vernick JS, Bulzacchelli MT. Effects of state-level firearm seller accountability policies on firearm trafficking. Journal of Urban Health. 2009. 86(4):525–537;  Webster DW, Vernick JS, McGinty EE, & Alcorn T. Preventing the diversion of guns to criminals through effective firearm sales laws. In Reducing Gun Violence in America: Informing Policy with Evidence and Analysis. 2013. Vol. 9781421411118, pp. 109-121.
• And the unregulated, online marketplace has enabled prohibited purchasers to weaken state background check laws by traveling to neighboring states without these laws. Between 2016 and 2017, three individuals were arrested for trafficking an estimated 90 firearms purchased on Armslist.com and Facebook into Illinois from Kentucky. These firearms were subsequently linked to violent crimes in Illinois.¹¹Yablon A. Chicago felons busted for gun trafficking bought weapons via Armslist and Facebook. The Trace. May 16, 2018. Available at https://bit.ly/3rnl1pS.

Too many Pennsylvanians are killed or wounded with guns, costing the state billions of dollars.

• Every year, more than 1,500 Pennsylvanians are killed with guns and over 3,000 more are shot and wounded.¹²Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, “EveryStat: Pennsylvania,” http://everystat.org/#Pennsylvania. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS) Fatal Injury Reports. A yearly average was developed using five years of most recent available data: 2015 to 2019; Ted R. Miller and David Swedler, analysis of HCUP nonfatal injury: 2017.
• Gun violence costs Pennsylvania $12 billion each year, of which $567 million is paid
  by taxpayers.¹³Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, “EveryStat: Pennsylvania,” http://everystat.org/#Pennsylvania. Ted R. Miller, analysis of CDC fatal injury: 2018 and HCUP nonfatal injury: 2017.
• State laws requiring background checks for all handgun sales—by point-of-sale check and/or permit—are associated with lower firearm homicide rates, lower firearm suicide rates and lower firearm trafficking.¹⁴Michael Siegel and Claire Boine, What Are the Most Effective Policies in Reducing Gun Homicides? Albany, NY: Rockefeller Institute of Government, March 2019. https://bit.ly/2YPAz7P;  Eric W. Fleegler, Lois K. Lee, Michael C. Monuteaux, David Hemenway, and Rebekah Mannix, “Firearm Legislation and Firearm-Related Fatalities in the United States,” JAMA Internal Medicine 173,no. 9 (2013): 732-740; Daniel W. Webster, Jon S. Vernick, and Maria T. Bulzacchelli, “Effects of State-Level Firearm Seller Accountability Policies on Firearm Trafficking,” Journal of Urban Health 86, no. 4 (July 2009): 525–537. Federal law bars felons from having firearms but does not bar misdemeanors outside the domestic violence context. Daniel W. Webster, Jon S. Vernick, Emma Beth McGinty, and Ted Alcorn, “Preventing the Diversion of Guns to Criminals Through Effective Firearm Sales Laws,” in Reducing Gun Violence in America: Informing Policy with Evidence and Analysis, 109-121. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013. A 2019 analysis found that states that require a background check on all gun sales have homicide rates 10 percent lower than states without them.¹⁵Michael Siegel and Claire Boine, What Are the Most Effective Policies in Reducing Gun Homicides? (Albany, NY: Rockefeller Institute of Government, March 2019) https://bit.ly/2YPAz7P.