Right now, there’s a major fight going on at the local level over a new law that’s intended to keep guns out of criminal hands. Critics though say it’s just another case of legislating against the legal and responsible gun owners. Ed Lavandera is on the gun trail for us this morning.
It’s a very emotional issue, Ed.
ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Oh, absolutely, Kiran. You know, we spent the last two mornings talking about how guns are illegally trafficked across the country and out of the country. I wanted to take a look this time at a possible solution. And so we to Pennsylvania where it is becoming a very controversial issue.
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JANA FINDER, CEASEFIRE PA: So you get tired of hearing people complain.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): Jana Finder says not enough is being done to keep illegally trafficked guns off Pennsylvania’s streets. This might be the heart of northeastern gun country.
FINDER: To report their handguns when they’re lost or stolen to the police.
LAVANDERA: But Finder, along with a group called Ceasefire PA has launched a grassroots campaign to get local governments to sign on to what’s become a highly controversial law called “Lost and Stolen Ordinances.” Supporters of gun rights hate it. The ordinances require gun owners to report if their weapons have been lost or stolen usually within 24 hours.
FINDER: There is very strong support for lost concerns because they have told us that this kind of requirement would give them another investigative tool to help crack down and reduce the numbers of illegal handguns in our streets.
LAVANDERA: Finder says these laws target the number one source of guns for criminals, people with clean records who buy guns then supply them to street criminals, the so-called straw purchasers.
(on camera): The battle over straw purchase ordinance is being waged across small towns all over Pennsylvania in city council chambers like this one here in Duquesne.
(voice-over): Duquesne’s city council was one of the latest to get behind it. So far 25 Pennsylvania cities have adopted the ordinance.
MAYOR PHIL KRIVACEK, DUQUESNE, PENNSYLVANIA: I think that doing this gives us a chance of maybe to reduce violence in the city.
LAVANDERA: That maybe in the mayor’s answer is what infuriates Kim Stolfer and his gun rights activist group called “Firearms Owners Against Crime.
KIM STOLFER, FIREARMS OWNERS AGAINST CRIME: To come up with an idea and adopt it based on, well, it might work, is ridiculous. We wouldn’t get into an airplane that might fly. There is an awful lot of laws relating to firearms. The real problem here is that it’s not illegal to lose a firearm. It’s not illegal to have it stolen. But they want to prosecute you for being in that situation.
LAVANDERA: Supporters of the Lost and Stolen Ordinance say it’s a way of keeping a tighter watch on guns that go missing.
Gun control advocates say images like these are playing out too often across Pennsylvania. Six law enforcement officers were killed in the line of duty last year alone. This funeral honored Officer Michael Crenshaw who was murdered with an AK-47 in this neighborhood outside of Pittsburgh. Investigators say the suspect was wearing an ankle bracelet, a parolee on drug and gun charges.
So far more than a hundred police departments have come out in support of the Lost and Stolen Ordinances.
CHIEF HOWARD BURTON, PENN HILLS POLICE: Most of these ordinances that are being passed…
LAVANDERA: But not everyone in law enforcement thinks it’s the answer. Penn Hills Police Chief Howard Burton says “lost or stolen” is just another feel good law that wouldn’t have saved Officer Michael Crenshaw.
BURTON: We still have to realize we’re dealing with a criminal element. No matter how many laws that are out there, there’s still going to be broken.
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LAVANDERA: So about a year ago is when this movement started gaining steam there in Pennsylvania. And as far as we’ve been able to put together, no one has been prosecuted or convicted of this Lost and Stolen Ordinance, which obviously drives critics crazier. But the supporters of this say it’s still early. Some of those ordinances have been tied up in lawsuits and other police departments they say are still trying to figure out exactly how to implement this, Kiran.
So it’s freely admitted no one has been prosecuted, and the police have no idea how to implement it, even though this is supposedly vital for fighting criminal trafficking of guns in Pennsylvania? None of the lawsuits have stopped the locates from enforcing the ordinance.
This is a load of crap if I’ve ever seen one.
