PA Bill Number: HB1507
Title: In hunting and furtaking licenses, further providing for resident license and fee exemptions.
Description: In hunting and furtaking licenses, further providing for resident license and fee exemptions. ...
Last Action: Third consideration and final passage (198-5)
Last Action Date: Jun 30, 2025
Pa. senator calls for handgun licensing law :: 12/15/2015
PHILADELPHIA (WHTM) – A state Senator has unveiled legislation that would require Pennsylvanians to obtain a firearms eligibility license before they could buy a handgun.
Senator Art Haywood (D-Montgomery/Philadelphia) said handgun buyers would have to be at least 18 years old and a Pennsylvania resident to qualify for the license. They would have to pass a fingerprint background check, and they must have completed a firearms safety course within the last three years.
Law enforcement officers, armed forces members and retirees, and licensed firearms manufacturers would be exempt.
Haywood said 13 states and the District of Columbia have already passed legislation similar to his measure, Senate Bill 1029.
He said a 2015 study by the John Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research found homicides dropped 40 percent after Connecticut implemented handgun licensing and universal background check laws while the repeal of similar laws in Missouri led to at least 49 additional murders each year.
[For a refutation of the statements of the John Hopkins Study cited above go to this link https://www.foac-pac.org/CPRC-Bloombergs-School-of-Public-Health-Cherry-Picked-Claim-that-firearm-homicides-in-Connecticut-fell-40-Percent-because-of-a-gun-licensing-law/News-Item/2346]
http://abc27.com/2015/12/14/pa-senator-calls-for-handgun-licensing-law/
