Elmer Smith: Vote on innocuous gun bill will put radical opponents in crosshairs

THERE IT WAS, hidden between the codicils and caveats of an anti-crime bill.

Before you could say "NRA," gun-control advocates had snuck it onto the floor of the Pennsylvania General Assembly.

It's what you have to do to get a public hearing on any legislation that represents even the slightest encroachment on the inalienable right to own a handgun in Pennsylvania.

Gun ownership is religion here. Any bill that would amend, modify or restrict our God-given right to pack a pistol is heresy.

So, they play this little game up there in the Legislature. Gun- control advocates raise the same half-dozen doomed measures every year while the House Judiciary Committee, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of the National Rifle Association, lets them sit until the dust mites eat through the pages.

The beauty of the thing is that you can't even identify the gun-control opponents because they rarely have to actually vote against anything.

That's why advocates for a bill to require people to report lost or stolen handguns were declaring victory yesterday even though they still didn't have the votes yet to pass the requirement.

"This is a victory even if we don't get the 102 votes we need to pass it," said Johnna Pro, press secretary of the House Appropriations Committee.

"We'll finally be able to argue it on the floor."

It took weeks of stealth maneuvering plus a rally yesterday in the Capitol rotunda that drew 250 advocates, including the police commissioners from Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, just so the measure could be defeated in public as opposed to behind closed doors.

"The goal above all else was to get a recorded vote," said Joe Grace, executive director of CeaseFire Pa, an anti-gun-violence advocacy group. "We're an organization that can engage in political advocacy. We want to know where every one of those 203 legislators stand.

"We expect to prevail in the Legislature, if not today, eventually."

The new strategy did get the NRA to the table. The NRA has been negotiating to iron out details on a provision requiring gun purchasers to be notified at point of purchase about the reporting requirement.

"We're trying to be creative about this," said state Rep. Cherelle Parker, the Philadelphia delegation's point person on this issue.

"Members on both sides of the aisle are going to have to make a choice. We can compromise on the notification provisions, but the mandatory reporting requirement is non-negotiable.

"They [NRA] seem interested in a written notification gun purchasers would sign that lays out exactly what their reporting responsibilities would be. That shouldn't be a problem. It makes it stronger."

All of this maneuvering and public outcry over a provision that is so innocuous that it's hard to believe anyone would break a sweat opposing it.

Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey told reporters in Harrisburg yesterday that Philadelphia police had confiscated 5,700 guns last year. More than 1,000 illegal handguns were seized in Pittsburgh.

The state District Attorney's Association spoke out for it and city councils in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh both passed resolutions urging its passage.

Yet, the two sides were still wrangling into the night yesterday over language and amendments.

We're talking about a bill that would require gun owners to report their guns stolen or lost the same as they would if their cars were stolen. The obvious target is straw purchasers who buy guns for felons and others who can't buy them themselves.

The NRA screamed like scalded cats when state lawmakers tried to limit people to buying only 12 handguns a year. They preserved the right for everyone to buy a hundred guns a day if they want.

So is it too much to expect these buyers to say, "Oops, I seem to have mislaid my nickel-plated .357 magnum"?

Maybe that is a breach of orthodoxy that the pistol worshippers can't tolerate.

But after today, we should at least know whom to target in the next election cycle. *

Send e-mail to smithel@phillynews.com or call 215-854-2512. For recent columns: http://go.philly.com/smith