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Federal law establishes a baseline national standard regarding individuals' eligibility to larn and possess firearms. Under federal law, people are generally prohibited from purchasing or possessing firearms if they have been bedevilled of a felony or some domestic violence misdemeanors, or if they are field of study to certain court orders related to domestic violence or a serious mental condition. Notwithstanding, federal law merely provides a floor, and has notable gaps that allow individuals who have demonstrated significant take a chance factors for violence or self-harm to legally acquire and possess guns.

Pennsylvania law provides that, subject to certain limited exceptions, no person shall possess a firearm if they have been bedevilled of:

  • Possessing, using, making, repairing, selling, or otherwise dealing in any "offensive weapon," including machine guns, sawed-off shotguns, firearms with a silencer, and stun gunsone;
  • An offense relating to organized crime;
  • Possessing a weapon on school property;
  • Murder;
  • Voluntary or involuntary manslaughter involving reckless utilise of a firearm;
  • Aggravated set on;
  • Assault by a prisoner;
  • Stalking;
  • Kidnapping or unlawful restraint;
  • Rape, involuntary intercourse, or aggravated indecent assault;
  • Luring a child into a motor vehicle;
  • Arson;
  • Causing or risking catastrophe;
  • Burglary;
  • Criminal trespass (at the level of 2d caste felony or higher);
  • Robbery or robbery of a motor vehicle;
  • Felony theft or felony extortion accompanied past threats of violence (if information technology is the second conviction for said felony);
  • Felony receiving stolen property;
  • Impersonating a law enforcement officeholder;
  • Intimidation of, or retaliation against, a witness or a victim;
  • Escape from "official detention";2
  • Possession of weapons or implements for escape from a detention facility, correctional institution or mental infirmary;
  • Riot;
  • Paramilitary grooming;
  • Possession of a firearm past a pocket-sized or corruption of minors;
  • An offense involving "facsimile weapons of mass destruction"; or
  • Unlawful sale or lease of weapons or explosives.three

Pennsylvania constabulary besides by and large prohibits the following individuals from possessing a firearm:

  • A fugitive from justice;
  • A person who has been convicted of an criminal offense nether The Controlled Substance, Drug, Device and Cosmetic Act;iv
  • A person who has been adjudicated every bit mentally incompetent or involuntarily committed to a mental institution;
  • An illegal alien;
  • A person adjudicated delinquent under federal or state constabulary as a result of bear which, if committed by an developed, would constitute specified offenses under Pennsylvania law for a period of 15 years or until the person is age 30;v
  • A person who is the discipline of an agile protection from abuse order that provides for the relinquishment of firearms;
  • A person who is prohibited by federal law from possessing or acquiring a firearm considering of a conviction for a misdemeanor criminal offence of domestic violence.6; or
  • A person who was within the previous 5 years bedevilled or released from confinement or supervision following a confidence (whichever is later) for illegally declining to relinquish firearms in violation of a domestic-violence related protection guild.

A person who has been convicted of driving under the influence on three or more separate occasions within a 5-yr flow is prohibited from purchasing but not possessing a firearm.7

Pennsylvania law allows persons who are prohibited by Pennsylvania law from possessing firearms past virtue of a criminal conviction to apply to the court of common pleas of the county where the master residence of the bidder is situated for relief from the firearm prohibition.8 The court must grant the relief if ten years accept passed since the applicant's most contempo conviction.ix A person prohibited from possessing firearms because he or she was adjudicated incompetent or involuntarily committed to a mental establishment may similarly petition a court for relief from inability, in which instance the hearing must be closed.10 The court may grant such relief as it deems advisable if it determines that the applicant may possess a firearm without risk to himself or herself or any other person.eleven

Annotation that federal law notwithstanding considers a person to be prohibited from purchasing and possessing firearms even if state law purports to have restored his or her firearms eligibility, unless the person has had all of his or her civil rights restored (not only his or her firearms eligibility).12

For information on the background check procedure used to enforce these provisions, come across the Pennsylvania Background Bank check Procedures section.

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  1. See18 Pa. Cons. Stat. Ann. § 908, which defines "offensive weapon" to mean "whatsoever flop, grenade, auto gun, sawed-off shotgun with a butt less than eighteen inches, firearm specially made or peculiarly adapted for concealment or silent belch, whatsoever blackjack, sandbag, metal knuckles, dagger, knife, razor or cutting instrument, the bract of which is exposed in an automatic style past switch, push-push button, spring mechanism, or otherwise, any stun gun, stun baton, taser or other electronic or electric weapon or other implement for the infliction of serious bodily injury which serves no common lawful purpose." [↩]
  2. See 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. Ann. § 5121 (defining "official detention" as arrest, detention in any facility for the custody of persons nether accuse or conviction of a criminal offense or declared or found to be delinquent, detention for extradition or deportation, or any other detention for law enforcement purposes).[↩]
  3. eighteen Pa. Cons. Stat. Ann. § 6105(b).[↩]
  4. See 35 Pa. Stat. Ann. § 780-101 et seq.[↩]
  5. Encounter xviii Pa. Cons. Stat. Ann. § 6105(c)(7), (eight).[↩]
  6. 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. Ann. § 6105(c).[↩]
  7. 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. Ann. § 6105(c)(3).[↩]
  8. 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. Ann. § 6105(d). A hearing must be held in open court, and the commissioner and the district attorney of the county where the application is filed and whatsoever victim or survivor of a victim of the offense upon which the disability was based may be parties to the proceeding. eighteen Pa. Cons. Stat. Ann. § 6105(e).[↩]
  9. 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. Ann. § 6105(e)(2). See likewise xviii Pa. Cons. Stat. Ann. § 6105.1 (purporting to restore firearms eligibility to persons convicted nether certain laws previously on the books in Pennsylvania.).[↩]
  10. 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. Ann. § 6105(f)(ane), (iii).[↩]
  11. 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. Ann. § 6105(f)(1).[↩]
  12. See 18 U.Due south.C. § 921(a)(20)(B), (33)(B)(ii); U.s. v. Essig, 10 F.3d 968 (3d Cir. 1993); United States 5. Leuschen, 395 F.3d 155 (3d Cir. 2005); Pa. State Police v. Paulshock, 836 A.2nd 110 (Pa. 2003).[↩]