Friend,

When Joshua Mitchell was chased down and shot to death in front of his girlfriend in 2017, the murderer, a Phoenixville man, turned out to be a convicted felon who’d stolen the gun from a nearby home just two days earlier.[1] Cases like this have become all too common: stolen guns helped fuel a 49% rise in Pennsylvania homicides last year.[2] Yet lawmakers continue to drag their feet on requiring gun owners to report a lost or stolen firearm. 

Help law enforcement get a handle on violent crime: send a message to your State Representative to support House Bill 980 now.

Guns make up the vast majority of murder weapons, many of them stolen from their legal owners.[3] Nearly a third of guns found at Pittsburgh crime scenes were stolen—and more than 40% of those thefts had not been reported.[4] Stolen guns are used in everything from carjacking to sexual assault, from kidnapping to murder, often committed by people who can’t legally purchase a gun.[5] 

We need lawmakers to help turn this state of violence around by implementing HB 980, requiring gun owners to report a theft within 72 hours.[6]

More than 40,000 guns are known to have been stolen in Pennsylvania between 2012 and 2017, but since reporting is voluntary, the real total is almost certainly much higher.[7] Requiring Pennsylvania gun owners to report when their guns are lost or stolen would help law enforcement agencies track the flow of stolen guns, take note of trends, and deploy resources to stop gun theft and recover lost firearms. Equally important, mandatory reporting makes it harder for gun traffickers and straw purchasers (people who buy guns legally, then sell them illegally) to dodge the consequences by posing as law-abiding gun owners who simply failed to report “stolen” firearms. One 2013 study suggested that stolen gun reporting laws reduced arms trafficking activity by up to 46%.[8]

Tell your PA representative to get on board with mandatory reporting of stolen guns.

Thank you for helping stem the flow of stolen firearms into the hands of those who would harm our communities.

Sincerely,

Adam Garber
CeaseFirePA Executive Director

[1] "Guilty plea in Phoenixville shooting death." Delco Times, August 7, 2018.
[2] Federal Bureau of Investigation Crime Data Explorer data, accessed October 11, 2021.
[3] "America's Gun Culture in Charts." BBC News, April 8, 2021,
[4] "Gaps continue in firearm Surveillance: Evidence from a large U.S. city Bureau of Police." Social Medicine 10 (1): 2016.
[5] "Missing Pieces: Gun theft from legal owners is on the rise, quietly fueling violent crime across America." The Trace, November 20, 2017.
[6] "Bill Information: Regular Session 2021-2022, House Bill 980." Pennsylvania General Assembly, accessed October 11, 2021.
[7] "Gun owners must report lost and stolen firearms." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, February 12, 2021.
[8] "Solutions: Report Lost and Stolen Guns." Everytown Research and Policy, accessed October 11, 2021.