PA Bill Number: HB2235
Title: Providing for regulation of the meat packing and food processing industry by creating facility health and safety committees in the workplace; ...
Description: Providing for regulation of the meat packing and food processing industry by creating facility health and safety committees in the workplace; ... ...
Last Action: Referred to LABOR AND INDUSTRY
Last Action Date: Apr 25, 2024
House votes to let nonviolent ex-felons restore gun rights :: 06/06/2015
In a significant victory for Second Amendment rights, the House this week voted to let non-violent felons win back their gun rights.
Citing a grandfather who as a college student became a felon for writing a bad rent check, Colorado Republican Rep. Ken Buck said that nonviolent ex-felons should be able to apply to restore their gun rights.
"America is a land of second chances. One mistake should not define your future," he said. The House agreed on a voice vote to his amendment to the Justice appropriations bill.
Buck's move would settle an ongoing fight in Congress between gun advocates and gun-control fans. For years, ex-felons have been allowed to ask the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to restore their gun ownership rights. But a 23-year-old provision authored by Democratic New York Sen. Chuck Schumer has blocked appropriations for the agency to investigate the applications, thus killing the process.
"Those who have lost the right to purchase and obtain a firearm are now one step closer to being able to petition the government for a full restoration of those rights," said the National Rifle Association on its Facebook page.
Buck is a former prosecutor who was moved by a Coloradan who once wrote a bad check to a landlord and as a felon was barred from owning a gun. Now a grandfather, he wanted to take his grandchild hunting but couldn't due to the ATF's inability to process his application to restore gun rights.
"There is no good reason to prevent law abiding citizens from at the very least petitioning ATF to have their rights restored," said Buck.
So far, there isn't a companion effort in the Senate.
