Mundy
HARRISBURG, Pa. - Sellers of firearms will get a second chance to show the Pennsylvania State Police is waiting too long to conduct background checks of buyers following a Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling.
The justices ruled May 30 that plaintiffs including Firearms Owners Against Crime can amend their complaint as they seek to prove the State Police failed to perform "instantaneous" background checks.
Pennsylvania is a point-of-contact state for gun sales, meaning law enforcement serves as an intermediary between sellers and the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. The State Police uses its Firearms Division to operate the Pennsylvania Instant Check System (PICS).
But a 2022 lawsuit said the State Police began intentionally understaffing PICS, leaving a few workers at a given time responsible for conducting about 1.5 million background checks each year.
The opinion, written by Justice Sallie Mundy, notes that some background checks took 34 hours to complete despite state law that requires "instantaneous" results. The plaintiffs said these delays violated the Uniform Firearms Act.
Some sellers said buyers changed their minds during the background check, resulting in lost sales and the fees charged on checks to fund PICS. Despite a preliminary ruling in favor of the plaintiffs, the Commonwealth Court eventually ruled state law wasn't specific enough when deciding what constitutes "instantaneous" or "immediate."
The Commonwealth Court took them to mean "as efficiently and promptly as reasonably possible" and considering budget and staffing issues, PICS had met that standard. And PSP was afforded sovereign immunity in the case, it ruled.
The plaintiffs tried to amend their petition to allege while the preliminary injunction was in effect, background checks were finished quicker. They suggested that meant the delays were not the result of insufficient staffing or funding, but of PSP's deliberate decision-making.
The Commonwealth Court rejected that request to amend the petition. The state Supreme Court, though it affirmed the dissolution of the preliminary injunction, said the plaintiffs can amend.
"We do not agree with the suggestion, contained in the Commonwealth Court's single-judge memorandum, that FOAC's request was limited to its disagreement with the panel's legal conclusions," Mundy wrote.
"To the contrary, FOAC sought to allege facts concerning PSP's reaction to the preliminary injunction that were not before the court when it ruled on the request for a preliminary injunction."
