Is Philly's Big Gun Permit Giveaway A Liability Problem?

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

Over the past 17 months, the Philadelphia Police Department under the "leadership" of Mayor Kenney and Police Commissioner Outlaw has issued a total of 76,433 new licenses to carry concealed firearms.

Last year, this amounted to a more than 700% increase in new licenses to carry. 

How did they do it? How did the Philly Police Department whack the time it takes to get a license to carry from the old standard of 40 days all the way down to just one week? 

They did it by basically blowing out all of the local safeguards that had been in place for decades, such as requiring an applicant seeking a gun permit to answer all the questions in a three-page questionnaire during a face-to-face interview with a cop. Prior to last year, if you wanted a gun permit, the Philly P.D. also used to take your fingerprints, conduct a background check, and ask for proof of residency.

But now that the city has done away with all of those traditional safeguards, does that create a liability problem?

While city lawyers were hiding under their desks last week, and refusing to answer any questions about the Big Gun Permit Giveaway, I asked Mark Zecca for his opinion. And Zecca, a former senior attorney in the city's Law Department who used to handle gun legislation, thinks the city has a problem. 

"Whenever the city fails to do it’s job and somebody gets hurt by that failure, there is potential liability," Zecca wrote in an email. "The city should realize that it might face liability by those injured by improperly issued permits from a very bad city policy and practice."

The Pennsylvania state Uniform Firearms Act states that in a first-class city such as Philadelphia, it's up to the police commissioner to determine whether to deny a gun permit to "An individual whose character and reputation is such that the individual would be likely to act in a manner dangerous to public safety."

But the city did away with all of its old safeguards to identify individuals who might be dangerous to public safety, such as background checks, fingerprints and requiring proof of residency, for two reasons.

One, a couple of gun owners groups had sued the city because the Gun Permit Unit had stayed closed for months during the pandemic, and people weren't getting their applications processed within the state's legal limit of 45 days.

Two, the city was running a daily backlog of between 800 and 1,000 applications for new licenses to carry.

So the city decided to solve its problems by dumping all of its old safeguards. Instead, the Police Department went to a shorter questionnaire that could be filled out online. The PPD also decided to leave the background checks to the state, in the form of the Pennsylvania Instant Check System [PICS] used by firearms dealers to verify who can legally buy a firearm.

Keep in mind, all of this was done in the name of expediency. The Gun Permit Unit, open five days a a week, is a place where the cops are presently approving 220 new licenses to carry a day or 4,496 new licenses to carry every month. 

I asked Zecca if he was still working in the law department, what would be his advice to the cops who run the Gun Permit Unit.

"Based on my conversations with the staff of the [Gun Permit] unit in the past and with the city attorney who I advised who worked with that unit in setting up the whole process, I would advise them to reinstate the same process that they did have in the past," Zecca wrote in an email.

He also gave a strong defense of the old way the Gun Permit Unit used to be run.

"Some people have complained that the city asks additional questions beyond what is in the mandated state form that the statute requires," Zecca wrote.

He's right; the old city form asked 25 questions, the new state form asks 12.

"However, this is lawful because the statute requires not only that form, but an investigation and a determination as to dangerousness" of the applicant, Zecca said. "There is simply no way that the Police Department can do its job in Philadelphia to make that determination without doing an investigation. And an investigation requires additional questions."

Critics of the old, slow way the city processed applications for new licenses to carry say the city was too strict, especially when compared with how relatively easy it is in the suburbs to obtain a license to carry.

Zecca has an answer for those critics.

"With respect to that required investigation, Philadelphia is not the suburbs," Zecca said. "We need to ask more questions here."

"In Philadelphia, the experience of the Gun Permit Unit has shown that there are many, many types of incidents that demonstrate that a person should not be issued a license to carry in Philadelphia -- that have never resulted in a criminal conviction or an involuntary mental institutionalization," Zecca wrote.

"For example, a person may have committed serious crimes where no conviction was obtained because witnesses were intimidated," Zecca wrote. 

"Or, charges may have been placed into ARD or other diversionary programs." 

"Or, prosecution policy may have dropped charges."

"Or there may have been private criminal complaints that the court system encouraged the complainants to withdraw."

"Or there may have been domestic or mental situations resolved without criminal charges or involuntary commitments," Zecca wrote. "These are just some of the situations."

 
"As former President Judge [Bonnie Brigance] Leadbetter [now Senior Judge] of the Commonwealth Court, recently said in a concurring opinion, there can be local conditions that call for greater firearm restrictions," Zecca wrote.

"And the Pennsylvania General Assembly itself has recognized these special conditions in Philadelphia by enacting a special crime of carrying a firearm on the streets of Philadelphia without a license," Zecca wrote. 

"This law applies only to Philadelphia. So, outside Philly, a license is not required to carry openly. But, in Philadelphia, a license is required to carry either openly or concealed."

Here is that statute:

§ 6108. Carrying firearms on public streets or public property in Philadelphia.
No person shall carry a firearm, rifle or shotgun at any time upon the public streets or upon any public property in a city of the first class unless:

(1) such person is licensed to carry a firearm; or

(2) such person is exempt from licensing under section 6106(b) of this title (relating to firearms not to be carried without a license).

So there you have it, folks.

In a city that set all-time records last year for murders, non-fatal shootings and carjackings, the Police Department is now putting more guns on the street every work day by issuing an average of 220 new licenses to carry.

Meanwhile, Mayor Kenney's spokesperson refuses to explain why our woke mayor, who usually blames the gun lobby for Philadelphia's epidemic of gun violence, decided to roll over for their benefit last year, thereby opening the floodgates for new licenses to carry. 

And the lawyers in the city's Law Department, rather than answer any questions, are still hiding under their desks.

In Philadelphia, this is what passes for leadership.