PA Bill Number: SB1198
Title: In plants and plant products, providing for plant and pollinator protection; conferring powers and duties on the Department of Agriculture and ...
Description: In plants and plant products, providing for plant and pollinator protection; conferring powers and duties on the Department of Agriculture and .. ...
Last Action: Referred to AGRICULTURE AND RURAL AFFAIRS
Last Action Date: May 17, 2024
Feds cracking down on illegal guns in Western Pennsylvania :: 05/12/2017
Nigeria Bates misses her granddaughter every day. “She was full of life,” Bates said. “Looking at her now, I can’t believe she’s gone.”
In March, 3-year-old Yasha found a gun at a home she was visiting in Mt. Washington and fatally shot herself. The man who lived there, Paul Parrish, is a felon who was not legally allowed to own the gun, police said.
“This baby should not have gotten to a gun whatsoever,” Bates said. “I'm angry, and I want something done.”
Federal authorities feel the same way and are cracking down on illegal guns in Western Pennsylvania. However, “straw purchases” – when someone who can legally buy and own a gun does so on behalf of someone who can’t – can be difficult to track.
Gun store thefts provide another source of illegal guns.
“They go into gun stores, (take) less than 90 seconds to smash cases and then leave,” said Special Agent Sarah O'Reilly with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
A recent break-in at Dunham’s in West Mifflin netted five rifles. A teenager has been charged in that crime.
And a recent indictment accuses a Castle Shannon man of having more than 20 stolen weapons in his home.
O'Reilly said there's one major reason behind the problem.
“The opiod addiction is the driving force,” she said. “Criminals need guns and addicts need drugs.”
Area gun proponents, like Kim Stoler with Firearms Owners Against Crime, support the crackdown.
“We have the right to bear arms in this country - at the federal and state level - and it's time that we respect that and hold criminals accountable,” she said.
Stolfer doesn’t support tougher laws, but better enforcement of existing ones.
“We have to be able to protect the rights of law-abiding citizens and not go overboard with overzealous attempts to deny people,” she said.
Bates just wants to make sure no other family has to endure the pain she and her loved ones felt, and has a message for illegal gun owners.
“Give up your guns before they kill a child or before they kill an innocent soul,” she said.
