COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
JUDICIARY COMMITTEE SPECIAL PUBLIC SAFETY HEARING
STATE CAPITOL HARRISBURG, PA
MAIN CAPITOL BUILDING ROOM 14 0
MONDAY, APRIL 9, 2 018 11:00 A.M.
PRESENTATION ON GUN LAWS AND VIOLENCE
BEFORE: HONORABLE RONALD MARSICO, MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HONORABLE STEPHEN BLOOM HONORABLE BECKY CORBIN HONORABLE SHERYL M. DELOZIER HONORABLE HAL ENGLISH HONORABLE BARRY JOZWIAK HONORABLE KATE KLUNK HONORABLE JERRY KNOWLES HONORABLE TEDD NESBIT HONORABLE RICK SACCONE HONORABLE PAUL SCHEMEL HONORABLE TODD STEPHENS HONORABLE TARAH TOOHIL HONORABLE JESSE TOPPER HONORABLE MARTINA WHITE HONORABLE BRYAN BARBIN HONORABLE RYAN BIZZARRO HONORABLE TIM BRIGGS HONORABLE DOM COSTA HONORABLE TINA DAVIS HONORABLE JASON DAWKINS HONORABLE MADELEINE DEAN HONORABLE JOANNA MCCLINTON HONORABLE DANIEL MILLER HONORABLE GERALD MULLERY 2
1 ALSO IN ATTENDANCE: 2 REPRESENTATIVE WARREN KAMPF 3 REPRESENTATIVE ERIC R. NELSON 4 REPRESENTATIVE TINA PICKETT 5 REPRESENTATIVE MARGUERITE QUINN 6 REPRESENTATIVE FRANCIS X. RYAN 7 REPRESENTATIVE MORGAN B. CEPHAS 8 REPRESENTATIVE CAROLYN T. COMITTA 9 REPRESENTATIVE PAMELA A. DELISSIO 10 REPRESENTATIVE MARK K. KELLER 11 REPRESENTATIVE WILLIAM C. KORTZ, II 12 REPRESENTATIVE PERRY S. WARREN 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 * * * * *
Pennsylvania House of Representatives Commonwealth of Pennsylvania 3
COMMITTEE STAFF PRESENT: THOMAS DYMEK MAJORITY COUNSEL AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR MICHAEL KANE MAJORITY COUNSEL KAREN DALTON MAJORITY COUNSEL JEN DURALJA MAJORITY COMMITTEE SECRETARY MICHELLE MOORE MAJORITY ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT MIKE FINK MAJORITY REPUBLICAN RESEARCH
SARAH SPEED DEMOCRATIC EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR TIM CLAWGES DEMOCRATIC COUNSEL KRISTEN BERNARD DEMOCRATIC LEGISLATIVE ASSISTANT 4
I N D E X
TESTIFIERS
~k k k NAME PAGE
REPRESENTATIVE TODD STEPHENS PRIME SPONSOR OF HOUSE BILL 2227 ...... 11
REPRESENTATIVE MADELEINE DEAN...... 2 4
REPRESENTATIVE MARGUERITE QUINN...... 40
REPRESENTATIVE WARREN KAMPF PRIME SPONSOR OF HOUSE BILL 2216...... 51
REPRESENTATIVE WILLIAM C. KORTZ, II PRIME SPONSOR OF HOUSE BILLS 2149 AND 2150...... 60
REPRESENTATIVE PAMELA DELISSIO...... 77
SUBMITTED WRITTEN TESTIMONY
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(See submitted written testimony and handouts online.) 5
1 P R O C E E D I N G S
2 ~k ~k ~k
3 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: Good morning,
4 everyone. Welcome. I want to remind everyone that we are
5 being recorded and also to silence your cell phones. I
6 call this hearing to order.
7 I want to ask the Members to my right to
8 introduce themselves coming down this way. Hello?
9 REPRESENTATIVE MILLER: Oh, yes, okay.
10 Representative Dan Miller, 42nd District, Allegheny County.
11 REPRESENTATIVE MULLERY: Gerry Mullery, 119th,
12 Luzerne County.
13 REPRESENTATIVE BLOOM: Steve Bloom 199th
14 District, Cumberland County.
15 REPRESENTATIVE BRIGGS: Tim Briggs, 149th,
16 Montgomery County.
17 REPRESENTATIVE DEAN: Madeleine Dean, 153rd,
18 Montgomery County.
19 REPRESENTATIVE BARBIN: Bryan Barbin, 71st
20 District, Cambria and Somerset County.
21 REPRESENTATIVE SACCONE: Rick Saccone, 39th
22 District, Allegheny and Washington Counties.
23 REPRESENTATIVE DAWKINS: Jason Dawkins, 179th,
24 Philadelphia County.
25 REPRESENTATIVE MCCLINTON: Good morning. Joanna 6
1 McClinton, 191st Legislative District, Philadelphia and
2 Delaware Counties.
3 REPRESENTATIVE JOZWIAK: Representative Barry
4 Jozwiak, 5th District, Berks County.
5 REPRESENTATIVE CORBIN: Good morning. Becky
6 Corbin, State Representative for the 155th in Chester
7 County.
8 REPRESENTATIVE TOOHIL: Good morning. Tarah
9 Toohil, 116th, Luzerne County.
10 REPRESENTATIVE KNOWLES: Good morning. Jerry
11 Knowles, portions of Berks, Schuylkill, and Carbon
12 Counties, 124th District.
13 REPRESENTATIVE SCHEMEL: Paul Schemel from
14 portions of Franklin County.
15 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: Todd Stephens, the
16 151st in Montgomery County.
17 MR. DYMEK: Tom Dymek, Committee Executive
18 Director.
19 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: Ron Marsico, 105th
20 District in Dauphin County.
21 MS. SPEED: And Sarah Speed, Democratic Executive
22 Director.
23 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: Well, thank you very
24 much, everyone, for being here. I thank Members and staff.
25 Anyone else? We okay? 7
1 Well, once again, welcome to today's hearing, to
2 the Committee's hearing on the topic of public safety and
3 Pennsylvania’s gun laws.
4 I was moved to schedule these hearings following
5 the tragic shootings that have occurred at Marjory Stoneman
6 Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and also at Sandy
7 Hook Elementary School in Connecticut and at the public
8 gatherings such as the Pulse nightclub in Orlando and the
9 Route 91 Harvest Music Festival in Las Vegas.
10 In fact, even since the recent murders in
11 Parkland, Florida, there have been more school shootings
12 such as at the Great Mills High School in Maryland, where
13 an armed school resource officer intervened to stop the
14 shootings after just two innocent casualties. And although
15 we are still learning the facts, law enforcement working
16 from a tip from a fellow student may have prevented another
17 tragedy in recent weeks at the Bonner Prendergast Catholic
18 High School in Delaware County.
19 It has become clear that all of us as
20 policymakers have to explore ways to prevent these
21 situations from happening in the future. That’s why I ’ve
22 called for this series of public hearings, to discuss the
23 serious problem of violence with firearms and public
24 safety.
25 As you can see, the format of these hearings is 8
1 unique. It’s never been done before like this. Rather
2 than inviting various associations or others or groups to
3 provide testimony, what I have done is to extend an open
4 invitation to all the Members of the House of
5 Representatives of Pennsylvania to come before this
6 Committee and the public to outline their proposals, their
7 ideas, their concerns on this very serious issue. If a
8 Member wants to suggest legislation, this is their
9 opportunity to come forward and explain what they would
10 like to see happen and why.
11 But while I am seeking solutions and the
12 Committee Members as well, I also want to avoid
13 overreacting. I want it to be clear. I want this to be
14 very clear. I have been an A-plus member of the NRA
15 throughout my legislative career, and that didn’t happen by
16 mistake. That’s because I believe in the value of the
17 Second Amendment.
18 So I hope this Committee will hear testimony
19 about possible legislation. I ’ve also invited Members to
20 appear and testify against particular legislative ideas as
21 well. This topic is just too important to exclude any
22 Member’s point of view.
23 I am very pleased to tell you that interest in
24 this hearing has been very high. As of right now, we have
25 27 Members scheduled to testify. I ’m also pleased that so 9
1 many of my colleagues are here today and participating in
2 this hearing.
3 Now, as I noted, the format of this hearing is
4 unique. I will try to keep us on track and moving along.
5 I have scheduled an average of four testifiers per hour.
6 W e ’d like to try to keep to that schedule. I ’m going to
7 try and make sure that each testifier has a fair
8 opportunity to speak, but I also ask the testifiers to keep
9 in mind to leave some time for a fair opportunity for
10 questions as well.
11 Finally, I ’d like to add a few other scheduling
12 notes. We will conclude today’s hearing at 1:00 p.m. for
13 the commencement of session. We will reconvene tomorrow
14 and on Wednesday at 10:00 a.m. each day until session
15 starts, and it’ll be in this caucus room.
16 This hearing was scheduled to continue on
17 Thursday, but due to the high level of interest, I have
18 altered this schedule. The hearing day on Thursday has
19 been canceled, but I ’ve added hearing days on Monday of
20 next week and Tuesday starting at 11:00 on Monday and at
21 9:00 on Tuesday.
22 There’s one more point that I would like to make.
23 In my experience, too often, any attempt to talk about
24 legislation involving firearms falls into subtle or not
25 very subtle insults, and I will not tolerate that. Those 10
1 who support legislation limiting access to firearms
2 sometimes imply that Second Amendment supporters don’t care
3 about the safety of our children at school or of victims of
4 domestic violence or others. Of course, that’s complete
5 nonsense.
6 At the same time, sometimes those who advocate
7 for strict Second Amendment rights imply that any
8 initiative whatsoever to limit access to firearms is an
9 irreversible first step towards complete confiscation.
10 That, too, also is nonsense.
11 I expect this Committee will be able to put those
12 kinds of thoughts to the side and instead spend these
13 hearings really listening to each other. I hope we will be
14 able to have a long, substantive, productive and honest and
15 civil discussion about how to protect Pennsylvanians from
16 violence while also respecting the constitutional rights of
17 us all.
18 With that, I ’m going to ask our first testifier,
19 Representative Stephens, to come before the Committee.
20 Representative Stephens, do you want to go in front there,
21 front table. Thanks. Once again, w e ’re going to try to
22 keep to a 15-minute time frame, including questions if we
23 can, Members.
24 So, Representative Stephens, you may begin when
25 you’re ready. 11
1 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: This is a little bit of
2 a different perspective. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the
3 opportunity.
4 Good morning. And I really appreciate the
5 opportunity for these hearings in general. You hit the
6 nail on the head. As someone who’s focused on gun violence
7 for quite a number of years, I ’ve been frustrated with sort
8 of that dynamic that seems to occur when you get painted
9 into one corner of the room or the other corner of the room
10 the minute you bring up the subject, and I really
11 appreciate the opportunity to present what I believe to be
12 a very reasonable and balanced and meaningful approach to
13 this situation.
14 Following the most recent mass shooting, I had
15 said that all options should be on the table, and these
16 hearings really do exactly that. They let all options be
17 on the table for consideration. Just by way of quick
18 background -- I won’t belabor the point; I think many of my
19 colleagues on the Committee are aware of my background -
20 but I ’ve been working on gun violence since 2004 first as a
21 prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Montgomery
22 County D.A.’s Office.
23 When I came to the Legislature in 2010, I
24 continued working on those policies. I ’ve introduced over
25 a dozen gun bills to address gun violence, while respecting 12
1 the Second Amendment, which is obviously a part of our
2 Constitution.
3 As a Committee, w e ’ve accomplished some good
4 things on that front. We increased penalties for straw
5 purchasers who illegally give guns to those who are
6 precluded from having them. We’ve increased penalties for
7 those who illegally possess guns and ensured that those
8 cannot legally possess a gun in Pennsylvania due to mental
9 health reasons are included in the National Background
10 Check database. That last change alone ensured that
11 700,000 people with serious mental health issues cannot buy
12 guns anywhere in the country. W e ’ve certainly moved the
13 needle, although I think we can move the needle even
14 farther with the proposal that I ’m bringing forth today.
15 In trying to address the issue of gun violence, I
16 think we have to take an evidence-based approach and follow
17 the data. According to the Pennsylvania Department of
18 Health, 1,509, 1,509 Pennsylvanians died as a result of
19 gunshot wounds in 2016. Of those 929 or roughly 60 percent
20 committed suicide with a firearm. This percentage has
21 remained consistent for at least the past five years and
22 mirrors the national percentage of suicide by firearm rates
23 according to the CDC.
24 If we want to make a meaningful difference in
25 reducing gun violence, we must consider not only the 13
1 tragedy of mass shootings but an approach that would help
2 address suicides as well. As you may know from news
3 accounts, many mass shootings end in a suicide either with
4 the individual taking their own life or what’s commonly
5 referred to as suicide by cop where they invite the police
6 to end their life for them.
7 What I think is especially compelling is that the
8 studies show that most of those committing suicides and
9 mass shootings are obtaining their guns legally, and I
10 think that’s an important fact that we need to consider as
11 we look at some of the different approaches that are out
12 there.
13 Since the tragic shooting in Parkland, Florida,
14 I’ve been working on a new proposal that is already in
15 place in five States and is now being considered in 31
16 States across the country, as well as the U.S. House and
17 U.S. Senate. My bill, House Bill 2227, creates extreme
18 risk protective orders in Pennsylvania. Under my proposal,
19 a family member or law enforcement official could ask a
20 Judge to temporarily remove someone’s guns if they are
21 found to be a danger to themselves or others.
22 Like a protection from abuse order, a preliminary
23 order could be granted immediately if there was sufficient
24 evidence of danger but would be followed by a full hearing
25 on the matter within days. At this hearing, the subject of 14
1 the petition would be granted full due process rights,
2 including the right to be represented by counsel and to
3 have one appointed for them if they could not afford one,
4 the right to present witnesses and offer evidence, and the
5 right to cross examine any witnesses offered against them.
6 Following the hearing, if the Judge found clear
7 and convincing evidence that the individual was a danger to
8 themselves or others, the Judge would issue an order for
9 them to relinquish their guns for up to one year. The bill
10 also makes it clear that the crime of false swearing and
11 false reports to law enforcement apply to anyone who lies
12 in an attempt to obtain an extreme risk protection order.
13 This concept started in Connecticut in 1999 when
14 a disgruntled employee arrived at the lottery headquarters
15 and killed four supervisors before killing himself. Prior
16 to the shooting, employees and family members noted how the
17 man was under duress and could snap at any time, and a
18 family member and police were aware of threats of suicide.
19 Then, Indiana adopted a version in 2003 after an
20 Indianapolis police officer Jake Laird was killed by a man
21 the police knew was dangerous. The police had previously
22 hospitalized him and taken his guns but were forced to
23 return those guns to him. Before killing Officer Laird,
24 the man killed his own mother and took to the streets of
25 Indianapolis shooting along the way. He was justifiably 15
1 killed by police.
2 Next to adopt extreme risk protective orders was
3 California following the mass shooting killing six people
4 and then a suicide on the streets of Isla Vista. The
5 murderer’s family had attempted to commit him, but
6 unfortunately, he did not meet the criteria. Prior to the
7 shooting, someone online commented on a video that the man
8 posted of himself saying that he, quote, "looked like a
9 serial killer."
10 In Washington State, the voters adopted extreme
11 risk protective orders with nearly 70 percent of the vote.
12 A mother involved in pushing the initiative had a son with
13 mental health issues who she described as depressed and
14 increasingly violent, but he nonetheless was able to
15 purchase the gun that he used to kill his stepsister before
16 turning the gun on himself in the family home.
17 Finally, in Oregon, a Republican State Senator
18 who was a U.S. Army Special Forces veteran introduced
19 extreme risk protective order legislation following his
20 son’s own suicide. His son was a U.S. Navy veteran
21 himself. His father explained how his son never fully
22 recovered from the trauma of war.
23 Duke University studied Connecticut’s extreme
24 risk protective orders, and they found that the law
25 prevented more than 75 suicides over a 14-year period. 16
1 Form Connecticut to California, from the bluest of blue
2 States to the reddest of red, States all across America are
3 adopting this approach to help stem the tide of gun
4 violence. This approach has been endorsed by writers at
5 the National Review and the Washington Post and a myriad of
6 publications from one end of the country to the other.
7 It’s time we adopted the extreme risk protection orders
8 provided for in my bill, House Bill 2227, and started
9 saving lives in Pennsylvania.
10 Mr. Chairman, that is all I have in terms of
11 testimony. I ’m happy to answer any questions that the
12 Members may have.
13 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: Thank you,
14 Representative Stephens.
15 Are there any questions? Representative Miller.
16 REPRESENTATIVE MILLER: Todd, thanks for your
17 thoughts and your passion on it.
18 You know, it’s been pretty interesting. I ’ve
19 been trying to do some research along your proposal and
20 some similar with it as well. I appreciate your emphasis
21 on some of the work that Connecticut has done. I ’m from
22 Connecticut, so, you know, I appreciate -- I grew up about
23 15 minutes from Sandy Hook.
24 Have you been able to compare I guess two things?
25 One is how the standard would relate to mental health 17
1 commitments that currently we do. I ’ll wait. Go ahead.
2 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: Yes, so that’s a great
3 question and I certainly appreciate it.
4 You know, with the current particularly 302
5 procedure that exists in Pennsylvania law, there’s a couple
6 issues there. The first is -- and this came from the
7 Department of Human Services -- the two key factors are a
8 person must be severely mentally disabled and in need of
9 immediate treatment. The severely mentally disabled is a
10 pretty high threshold there, but on top of that, there’s a
11 tremendous reticence amongst family members to actually
12 involuntarily commit a loved one to a mental institution.
13 And, you know, there’s a lot of folks who might not need to
14 be involuntarily committed in order to protect themselves
15 or others, but at the same time might need to be separated
16 from their guns for a short period of time in order to
17 ensure the safety of themselves or others.
18 I read a study where it said most people who
19 commit suicide think about it for some period of time but
20 don’t actually decide to do it until about 10 minutes
21 before they actually commit the act. And so there’s a ton
22 of data about the increased rate of suicide when there are
23 firearms available to the individual, and so, you know,
24 this would go a long way, as the data from Connecticut
25 shows, to helping reduce those suicide rates. It would 18
1 allow people to get help for a loved one without the stigma
2 or really the heavy-duty impact of involuntarily committing
3 them.
4 The other thing is when you’re brought in for the
5 involuntary commitment, a lot of folks -- and I don’t know
6 if this is required by law, but nonetheless, a lot of folks
7 are given the opportunity to voluntarily commit themselves.
8 Well, that might be great for that night or for that short
9 period of time, but, you know, what happens beyond that?
10 And in that situation, none of the guns would be removed
11 from the home if they agree to be voluntarily committed.
12 REPRESENTATIVE MILLER: And —
13 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: And can I just say one
14 last thing on this front? The other thing that’s
15 interesting, the 302 commitment doesn’t involve any of the
16 due process, so flipping over to the gun rights
17 perspective, there’s no due process afforded to people who
18 are 302’ed, none. They don’t get a lawyer, they don’t get
19 to present evidence, they don’t get to cross examination
20 their accuser. They don’t have any of those protections,
21 and they lose their firearms rights for the rest of their
22 life without the ability to have them restored ever.
23 And so on the one hand you have this stigma
24 which, you know, causes people to be reluctant to 302 their
25 loved one, and on the other hand, you have an absence of 19
1 any constitutional protections and a lifelong ban from
2 possessing guns that cannot be undone. And, you know, I
3 just think that there are a number of problems with that,
4 and so having this alternative would be helpful for us in
5 Pennsylvania.
6 REPRESENTATIVE MILLER: And I ’m sure the good
7 Chairman wants me to be quick here, so a couple quick
8 things with it. I appreciate you mentioning the due
9 process situation with it, and I do think that some Public
10 Defender’s Offices may be covering perhaps other things
11 that some do not. Would your proposal, just so I
12 understand it, the right to counsel, I think you said if
13 they could not afford one, one could be appointed. Did you
14 actually have a suggestion of where that attorney would
15 come from?
16 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: It would come from the
17 Public Defender’s Office in my proposal. And I ’ll confess,
18 that is unique. None of the five States as far as I ’m
19 aware of provide for the rights of counsel, but just to
20 give you the genesis of that, what I didn’t want to have
21 happen was, you know, Mrs. Smith is worried about her son,
22 and now, you know, her son, who’s a gun owner, shows up in
23 court and Mrs. Smith has some, you know, high-powered
24 attorney who’s there to represent her and help her through
25 this process, but he is sitting, you know, at the table by 20
1 himself without representation and vice versa. I didn’t
2 want, you know, the gun owner to show up with an attorney,
3 some high-powered lawyer, and Mrs. Smith to be without the
4 assistance of counsel. So in this case the District
5 Attorney is able to participate in the petitioner process,
6 and the Public Defender would be able to participate or
7 they’d have their own counsel.
8 REPRESENTATIVE MILLER: Todd, you’re killing me
9 with the time. So real quick, just thank you -
10 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: Well, I ’m a lawyer,
11 Dan. I mean, I got to answer your questions thoroughly.
12 REPRESENTATIVE MILLER: In Allegheny County when
13 you go apply for a Public Defender’s Office, there’s an
14 income threshold in your proposal. Does that income
15 threshold still apply?
16 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: Yes, it would be
17 whatever the income threshold is for a Public Defender.
18 REPRESENTATIVE MILLER: Okay.
19 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: If you satisfy that,
20 you’d be covered.
21 REPRESENTATIVE MILLER: Thank you. My last
22 question for you, in relation to your review of the other
23 States, was your data that showed how many of these
24 proceedings actually occurred and sort of like any idea as
25 to how long they lasted or appeals perhaps that came out of 21
1 it? Are we aware of those numbers?
2 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: I didn’t see data on
3 appeals. There’s some information about Indiana, although
4 the article was quick to say that not all the information
5 was entered into the database that this reporter was
6 checking, so I don’t know how reliable that data is.
7 Duke University did this study on Connecticut,
8 and I think that would probably be the best place to go in
9 terms of trying to ascertain, you know, how many of these
10 actions were brought. Now, they have a little bit of a
11 different approach in Connecticut than what I ’m proposing,
12 but at least it could give you some sense of it from the
13 Duke study of the Connecticut law.
14 REPRESENTATIVE MILLER: Thank you for your time,
15 and thank you, Mr. Chairman.
16 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: Representative Barbin
17 for questions.
18 REPRESENTATIVE BARBIN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
19 And thank you, Representative Stephens. Is there
20 any bill that’s recently come out of the Senate Judiciary
21 or the Senate Chamber that is similar to your bill?
22 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: No.
23 REPRESENTATIVE BARBIN: Okay. Thank you.
24 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: Any other questions
25 from Members? 22
1 Representative Jozwiak.
2 REPRESENTATIVE JOZWIAK: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
3 Todd, I think you have a great bill here. I
4 think in your testimony you said for an extreme risk
5 protective order -- and I ’m thinking that’s the same as a
6 PFA -- family members or law enforcement could petition the
7 court. What about a psychologist or a psychiatrist if
8 they’re counseling somebody who is not really antisocial
9 but, you know, not normal, let’s say that? Can they do
10 this as well? Because I know the HIPAA law -- my thing
11 here with a lot of this gun control stuff is there should
12 be some mental control here. And I think that the HIPAA
13 laws restrict these doctors from telling law enforcement or
14 the courts things, and that’s Federal law, you know. I
15 understand that.
16 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: Yes, we didn’t have
17 them included in the bill, but I ’m certainly open to a
18 conversation with you and the organizations representing
19 those physicians and psychologists as to whether they’d
20 like to be included. There’s also talk about, you know,
21 guidance counselors at school. You know, that may be
22 another groups of folks that we might want to include. But
23 I ’m certainly happy to follow up with you on this
24 conversation and reach out to those folks. I ’ve actually
25 already presented the bill to the psychiatrists, and 23
1 they’re reviewing it now, but we’ll certainly be happy to
2 consider including them as well if possible.
3 REPRESENTATIVE JOZWIAK: Okay. Thank you,
4 Mr. Chairman.
5 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: Any other questions
6 from Members?
7 I don’t see any, so, Todd, you have circulated
8 the bill. How many cosponsors do you have?
9 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: You know, Mr. Chairman,
10 I’m sorry. Off the top of my head I don’t know -
11 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: But —
12 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: — but it’s House Bill
13 2227, and -
14 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: Okay.
15 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: -- I can recirculate
16 the cosponsor memo to the Members of the Committee if you’d
17 like.
18 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: I suggest you do
19 that.
20 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: I will.
21 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: Okay. Thanks for
22 providing testimony and talking about your bill.
23 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: Thank you.
24 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: So our next
25 testifier, Member of the Committee, is Representative 24
1 Madeleine Dean. Representative Dean. While Representative
2 Dean approaches the table, I want to recognize we have
3 Members -- I want to acknowledge who just got here -
4 Representative Nesbit, Representative Bizzarro, and with us
5 is Representative Nelson, who is not a Member of the
6 Committee but is here to observe. And I think also we have
7 the -- Representative Miller has a group from West Chester
8 University. Is that correct? Are they here? Yes, they
9 are. Welcome.
10 Representative Dean, you may begin.
11 REPRESENTATIVE DEAN: Chairman Marsico, it is a
12 different feeling being on this side of the table, but I
13 want to applaud you. I thank you for being moved to call
14 for these hearings. It is real leadership that you show
15 when, as the Chairman of this important Committee, you give
16 the chance, you give voice to different legislation like
17 the worthy legislation that Representative Stephens just
18 talked about so that we can do our job. So I ’m very, very
19 pleased, and I just applaud you.
20 I’m Madeleine Dean. I ’m a Member of this
21 Judiciary Committee. And I ’m a mom, I ’m a grandmom. I
22 come at that issue through that lens. I hope you’ll know
23 that. And so I applaud the Chairman when he said that he
24 recognizes that in our country and in our State we have
25 serious problems with firearms and public safety. And let 25
1 me say at the outset I told you I ’m a mom. I have three
2 sons. My middle son Harry is an avid hunter and sports
3 target shooter. He’s actually taken me target shooting,
4 and I wasn’t half bad. So I ’m not anti-gun. I ’m anti-gun
5 violence. I ’m anti-gun death. I ’m anti the trauma to our
6 communities.
7 I am also one of the founders of the PA SAFE
8 Caucus. The PA SAFE Caucus is a caucus of likeminded
9 advocates and legislators. It has recently become a
10 bipartisan caucus, which I’m very proud of. We want to get
11 at the issue of solving the problem of gun violence. We
12 are joined today, as you point out, by students. W e ’re
13 joined by advocates. W e ’re joined by a constituent of
14 mine, Jaime Amo, who is here. She is a survivor of
15 Columbine, which we know this month marked 19 years. Jaime
16 is here. She was 15 years old and in school at the time of
17 the Columbine shooting. So this problem is not new, but
18 it’s certainly in our news, and I appreciate the Chairman
19 doing what he’s doing here.
20 Just to lay the foundation, the numbers are
21 staggering. Thirty-three thousand people a year die of gun
22 violence. As Representative Stephens pointed out,
23 shockingly, two-thirds of those are to suicide by gun. So
24 another 11,000 or more are shot through homicide, accident,
25 and otherwise. 26
1 I want people to know that, in addition, 80,000
2 people are caught in the crossfire, literally wounded in
3 the crossfire a year. That’s 100,000 people a year. Each
4 day, it is estimated that seven children -- and by children
5 I mean infancy to 19 -- die in our country every single
6 day, minors, infants, children die through accident and
7 otherwise.
8 We have been moved by the Parkland shooting, we
9 all have. W e ’ve seen the leadership of these young people.
10 And the Bible tells us that the children will lead, and
11 it’s clear that they are. I was struck by Emma Gonzalez’s
12 mom saying that they are behind their daughter Emma but
13 they wanted to be in front. It’s okay that the children
14 lead us, and it’s great that they’re leading us to do the
15 right things and talk about legislation that might just
16 simply save lives.
17 So I ’m pleased that my students in my area did
18 what they did in terms of walking out. We saw that
19 nationwide on March 24th over 200,000 people participated
20 in the D.C. march, 15,000 people participated in
21 Philadelphia, 30,000 in Pittsburgh and 800 cities across
22 this country. These people, these people we represent want
23 change, and it’s our job to listen to that.
24 So here are some of the commonsense pieces of
25 legislation that I ’d like to just talk about very, very 27
1 quickly. They want commonsense reforms like a bump stock
2 ban. We learned after Las Vegas what the heck a bump stock
3 is, and we have a bill, H.B. 1872, with 61 bipartisan
4 cosponsors. The tool that was used in Las Vegas to kill 58
5 people and injure over 500 in a matter of minutes, we know
6 that machine guns are already outlaws in this country. We
7 got that back in the ’30s, and so this device allows a
8 semiautomatic weapon to fire at a rate similar to that of a
9 machine gun, reported as high as 600 rounds per minute.
10 That’s a piece of legislation I think most of us can agree
11 should have a vote, have a voice, make sure that we know
12 that we don’t want our communicates inflicted with that
13 kind of power and damage and harm.
14 Lost and stolen legislation, House Bill 832, 27
15 bipartisan cosponsors, I ’ve introduced that bill for the
16 last three sessions. It is supported. I ’d like you to
17 take a look. In 2013, the report of the Joint State
18 Government Commission on Violence Prevention, which
19 referenced this bill, saying, quote, "Reporting the thefts
20 of losses allows police to more accurately trace how these
21 weapons come to be in illegal hands and hopefully prosecute
22 those who participate in the illegal markets, as well as
23 allowing missing weapons to be returned to their rightful
24 owners when recovered," end quote.
25 But perhaps the most loudly and urgently called- 28
1 for legislation is to finally close the background check
2 loophole. We should do it here in Pennsylvania. We should
3 of course do this at the nationwide level as well. Simply
4 require background checks for all transfers of guns, every
5 one. Right now, we have the gaping hole in our system that
6 allows for the private sale of so-called long guns.
7 So we know now with internet sales and high-
8 capacity weapons that the private sale of an AR-15 is
9 possible without a background check, the very vehicle that
10 was used in the Parkland shooting.
11 My point is that some of these bills are properly
12 vetted; they’re ready. The public has weighed in with a
13 2015 Quinnipiac poll saying 95 percent of Pennsylvanians
14 support this sort of legislation. A recent study of the
15 American College of Physicians found that 22 percent of gun
16 owners who had purchased a firearm in the past two years
17 had done so without a background check.
18 We need a vote now, a vote on the bill that Todd
19 Stephens brings forward, a vote on the recently passed out
20 of the Senate, S.B. 501, unanimously passed two weeks ago I
21 believe it is out of the Senate Judiciary Committee and out
22 of the Senate and has to do with victims of domestic
23 violence and their surrender of guns. We should pass that,
24 too. And so I ask that we make sure that these hearings
25 result in votes on these bills. 29
1 What I do want to do is to thank the advocates,
2 the family members, Moms Demand Action, Delco United,
3 CeaseFire, the students for leading. There is no single
4 solution to gun violence. We know that. But a combined
5 effort, bipartisan combined effort will decrease the
6 tragedies. We have it in our power to save lives. We
7 absolutely have it.
8 And so I wanted to end on a couple of notes.
9 Sometimes people say to me, you know, why do you care about
10 this issue so much? Were you touched by it personally?
11 And in some ways yes. Guns are ever present in our
12 society. I was a teacher before I became a legislator. I
13 taught at La Salle University. And an adult student of
14 mine used to talk to me after class in the evening and talk
15 about her two terrific 16-year-old sons. And the next
16 semester I caught up with her and I learned that one of her
17 16-year-old sons was shot and killed by another 16-year-old
18 boy over absolutely nothing. Her world changed, their
19 community changed. So gun violence touches all of us.
20 That’s not the only reason. I ’ve cared about
21 this issue for my entire adult life. I took my kids years
22 ago to the Million Mile March, and so when somebody says
23 why do I care so much, I think of the John Donne poem. And
24 he says that "No man is an island entire of himself. Each
25 man is a part of the whole. One man’s death diminishes 30
1 me." That’s the way I feel about it. Any man’s injury,
2 any child’s injury, any woman’s injury diminishes me. It
3 is a question of our common humanity. So, as John Donne
4 says, "Do not ask for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for
5 thee."
6 Mr. Chairman, I really applaud you for giving us
7 the opportunity to talk about this important legislation.
8 I wanted to let you know I have testimony here that I ’m
9 going to offer for the record, a poem by a sixth-grader, an
10 email from an NRA member constituent of mine, emails,
11 multiple emails from students in my area, and I hope that
12 we will be able to move forward this session and vote on
13 legislation that will save lives.
14 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
15 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: Well, thank you for
16 coming forward -
17 REPRESENTATIVE DEAN: Thank you.
18 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: — and offering your
19 testimony -
20 REPRESENTATIVE DEAN: I appreciate that.
21 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: — and your ideas.
22 And w e ’ll certainly take the written testimony from your
23 constituents.
24 REPRESENTATIVE DEAN: Thank you.
25 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: I want to recognize 31
1 Representative Davis, who is here, a Member of the
2 Committee; Representative Costa, who is here, a Member of
3 the Committee; Representative Warren, who is here, a
4 nonmember of the Committee, but we welcome all nonmembers
5 to attend these hearings. And I also noticed that
6 Representative Mark Keller is here as well.
7 So with that, questions for Representative Dean?
8 Representative Stephens.
9 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: Thank you,
10 Representative Dean, for your leadership on this issue.
11 You mentioned Senate Bill 501, and one of the
12 provisions in 501 that troubles me is -- and I want to get
13 your opinion on it -- 501 reduces penalties for abusers who
14 defy a Judge’s order and refuse to surrender their guns
15 after being ordered to do so. It also allows those
16 individuals then to keep their firearms rights. Under
17 current law, they would not be permitted to ever own a
18 firearm again.
19 Do you feel like we should keep the current
20 status quo and keep it a misdemeanor of the first degree
21 for those who knowingly refuse to adhere to a Judge’s order
22 to surrender their guns?
23 REPRESENTATIVE DEAN: Thank you for the question.
24 And what I do think about Senate Bill 501 -- and just so
25 people know what happened in that bill -- and we can of 32
1 course think about it and amend it here in the House to
2 make it a stronger, smarter bill. What it does that it
3 does well is that it offers victims of domestic abuse some
4 hope for protection. So victims of domestic abuse are
5 among the highest at risk of violence and five times more
6 likely to be killed in the presence of a firearm. What the
7 bills does, it would remove, number one, the third-party
8 taking of the gun. Right now, first of all, it’s not
9 ordered in every case that the person who is subject to the
10 order, the restraint order, relinquish their weapons. This
11 would A) make it mandatory and make it timely. Right now,
12 we know that sometimes it’s ordered and it takes 60 days to
13 collect them, and you can allow your neighbor, your mom,
14 somebody in a separate residence to collect them. So those
15 are the two things that the bill does very, very well.
16 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: They’re great
17 provisions.
18 REPRESENTATIVE DEAN: Yes.
19 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: They’re terrific.
20 REPRESENTATIVE DEAN: Exactly.
21 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: They move the -
22 REPRESENTATIVE DEAN: Yes. In terms of the
23 reduced penalties, I would want to look at that and work
24 with you and take your advice and counsel and perhaps an
25 amendment that would make it stronger. 33
1 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: All right. Let’s take
2 a look at that. Thank you.
3 REPRESENTATIVE DEAN: Thank you.
4 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: Representation
5 Jozwiak has a question, but before we go to -- sorry.
6 Representative Klunk is here, a Member of the Committee,
7 and Representative Delozier is a Member of the Committee.
8 She is here as well.
9 Representative Jozwiak for a question.
10 REPRESENTATIVE JOZWIAK: Madeleine, thanks for
11 your testimony.
12 REPRESENTATIVE DEAN: Thank you.
13 You brought up bump stocks. Have you ever seen
14 one or handled one or fired one?
15 REPRESENTATIVE DEAN: I have not. No, I ’ve seen
16 them actually but I ’ve never fired one.
17 REPRESENTATIVE JOZWIAK: Do you understand how
18 they work?
19 REPRESENTATIVE DEAN: I understand the triggering
20 device. There are multiple versions of it, and I
21 understand from experts who have really -- I ’ve asked them
22 to explain it to me, how they work. What did you want to
23 reveal to me about how they work?
24 REPRESENTATIVE JOZWIAK: Well, I ’m an NRA member
25 myself, so I ’ll disclose that. And I didn’t even know what 34
1 a bump stock was until after the shooting, and I went out
2 and went to a range and I had some people that showed me
3 one. And I know exactly how it works. And I actually
4 fired a gun that had a bump stock on it because I ’ve never
5 done that before.
6 But my question is this: So you want to ban bump
7 stocks in Pennsylvania. Is there any movement on the
8 Federal level to control bump stocks either through
9 legislation or through the ATF?
10 REPRESENTATIVE DEAN: Unfortunately, w e ’ve seen
11 that the Federal level has been silent on this. I know
12 there are legislators that, like me, who have proposed it
13 at the Federal level, but it’s not been brought up.
14 I worked with Chairman Marsico on the language of
15 this bill to be very honest, and I would love to talk to
16 you privately offline about your experience with it. But
17 we ’ve been told what it looks like. And, of course, Las
18 Vegas showed us what it looks like. In a matter of
19 minutes, 58 people were slaughtered, 500 others wounded,
20 and everyone in that arena forever changed.
21 REPRESENTATIVE JOZWIAK: Well —
22 REPRESENTATIVE DEAN: It’s a weapon of war. It
23 makes a gun like a machine gun, and we know that machine
24 guns have no place on our streets or in our high rises
25 above an arena of country music goers. 35
1 REPRESENTATIVE JOZWIAK: Well, and my position on
2 this is rather than have 50 States with 50 different laws,
3 I think the Federal Government or the ATF should regulate
4 it like they do suppressors or any of those other type of
5 firearms. And, you know, everybody talks about the
6 semiautomatics being machine guns or weapons of war. You
7 know, any gun like that is a scary-looking gun. That’s
8 what makes people think it’s a dangerous gun. It’s only
9 dangerous by the person who’s holding it. It’s not the
10 weapon; it’s the person.
11 But I still believe that Federal regulations
12 should regulate it, not necessarily on the State level.
13 REPRESENTATIVE DEAN: And I appreciate that, and
14 I absolutely call for and have called for my whole adult
15 life for the Federal level to do its job. You’re right;
16 States shouldn’t have to do this individually, but w e ’re
17 forced to. And I ’m hopeful that here in Pennsylvania w e ’ll
18 lead the way.
19 REPRESENTATIVE JOZWIAK: Okay. Thank you.
20 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: Just a follow-up on
21 that. It’s my understanding that President Trump did order
22 the ATF to ban bump stocks. I think I read that just
23 recently.
24 REPRESENTATIVE DEAN: Very good.
25 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: So — 36
1 REPRESENTATIVE DEAN: I’m pleased with the
2 President for that.
3 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: Any other questions.
4 Is that the only thing you’re pleased with?
5 REPRESENTATIVE DEAN: Well, I ’ll take a good word
6 this week. That’s right. I didn’t expect to say that
7 sentence today.
8 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: W e ’ll let him know.
9 Representative Miller.
10 REPRESENTATIVE MILLER: Thank you again,
11 Mr. Chairman.
12 You know, I guess coming back to, though, the
13 point of the bump stock debate, there’s no doubt in my
14 experience with it that, you know, a bunch of creative
15 generally I ’m sure responsible gun owners have found ways
16 to make modifications to their weapons for a variety of
17 reasons or ways. My concern of course is not so much the
18 name of any firearm but the capability of them. And so my
19 question really is that bump stocks are something that we
20 talk about now, okay, and I ’m not familiar with the order
21 given to the ATF. I ’m not sure the applicability to
22 everything in the States, but okay, w e ’ll take a look.
23 I guess my concern more is and my question for
24 you on the bill that you mentioned is modifications across
25 the board that in some way or another make the weapon used 37
1 more like a machine gun with an automatic capability rather
2 than what is allowed today. And my understanding of it is
3 that these devices are increasing rates and bringing it
4 closer and closer, while not technically getting to the
5 point of, yes, it’s an M-16 or, I ’m sorry, a machine gun of
6 some type. So does the bill that you reference only deal
7 with bump stocks as a name or does the bill that you
8 reference deal with any device that increases the rate of
9 fire beyond what otherwise is definable with a
10 semiautomatic capability today?
11 REPRESENTATIVE DEAN: Thanks for the question.
12 And I ’m surprised. Like you, Representative, I didn’t -
13 I’m not surprised at my ignorance on bump stocks but gun
14 owners didn’t really know what a bump stock was, many of
15 them, prior to Las Vegas. So you’re absolutely right. We
16 were careful to make sure that the language did not
17 restrict it to just so-called bump stocks. It would
18 restrict the use of any kind of a multi-burst triggering
19 device that would replicate machine gun-like fire. So
20 you’re absolutely right. As we learn more about this, I
21 didn’t want to define this so narrowly that it only banned
22 one device, allowing multiple other devices. So it has to
23 do with multi-burst triggering devices that replicate the
24 fire of a machine gun.
25 REPRESENTATIVE MILLER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 38
1 REPRESENTATIVE DEAN: Thank you.
2 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: Representative Costa.
3 REPRESENTATIVE COSTA: Thank you, Chairman.
4 Maybe to address Representative Miller,
5 basically, there are Federal laws right now that restrict
6 the ability to change a gun. In other words, if you have a
7 semiautomatic and you put something or you alter that
8 device internally, you face Federal charges under those
9 laws. So I think when the President actually said bump
10 stocks, he was trying to get any device, external device,
11 because you can actually modify a semiautomatic into an
12 automatic if you know what you’re doing. I ’m not a
13 gunsmith, but there are Federal laws ATF enforces. And
14 people that own those types of guns know that they’re not
15 supposed to change what they call the sear inside and
16 things like that.
17 So, as I think my counterpart Representative
18 Jozwiak said, I think that we need to work closer with the
19 Federal Government because we can’t have 50 different laws
20 out there for these guns. And I am a co-prime sponsor with
21 Representative Dean on that bump stock bill, and I think
22 that if we can narrow it down and put some pressure on the
23 Federal Government to actually take the lead on this,
24 again, I also commend the President for, you know, doing
25 what he did there in that, you know, situation, but it 39
1 needs to go a little further and we need to know we have
2 our t ’s crossed and our i ’s dotted.
3 Thank you, Chairman.
4 REPRESENTATIVE DEAN: And I want to thank you,
5 Representative Costa, for your leadership on this. You
6 were one of the first calls I got when you heard that I was
7 looking at introducing and drafting legislation for the
8 bump stock ban. You also of course are an important prime
9 sponsor on the background check bill. You bring to it -
10 and you both bring to this issue the lens of law
11 enforcement, which is really important. And you have
12 expressed to me that law enforcement should not be
13 outgunned. Take a look at what happened in Parkland. The
14 security officers didn’t have a chance against what that
15 young man was using.
16 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: Okay. Any other
17 questions, comments? Seeing none, well, thank you,
18 Representative Dean, for -
19 REPRESENTATIVE DEAN: Thank you, Chairman
20 Marsico.
21 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: — providing your
22 testimony.
23 Our next testifier is Representation Marguerite
24 Quinn, Bucks County. Is Representative Quinn here? Okay.
25 She is? Back in the corner. Now, you’re up front. 40
1 REPRESENTATIVE QUINN: As this issue should be.
2 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: Welcome. And we're
3 doing pretty good here with time, so we're trying to limit
4 the testimony and the questions to 15 minutes just so you
5 know, Representative.
6 REPRESENTATIVE QUINN: Thank you. I've been here
7 back in that corner and been -
8 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: Okay.
9 REPRESENTATIVE QUINN: — appreciating this.
10 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: Okay.
11 REPRESENTATIVE QUINN: So, greetings. I'm
12 Marguerite Quinn, a Representative from Bucks County. And
13 like those who came before me, I'm a proponent of the
14 Second Amendment. I grew up with a hunting family, and as
15 a kid, you know, my parents insisted that I take the
16 hunter's safety course just as a level of respect and
17 understanding what was in the house and understanding that
18 they are weapons and that there's a place for them and that
19 there's a place not for them.
20 I'm here to represent House Bill 2060, which is a
21 companion bill to Senate Bill 501. And I appreciate the
22 mention of that bill by previous speakers. I also
23 appreciate and have worked closely with Senator Killion's
24 staff and with other organizations that are present in this
25 room on this, what I believe is commonsense legislation. 41
1 And as I say, while I believe it, sometimes in the House we
2 don’t always agree with some of the actions in the Senate,
3 but I think a 50 to 0 unanimous vote in support of this
4 bill proves that it’s a good bill.
5 I intend to have my bill amended in a similar
6 fashion to Senate Bill 501. I appreciate that consensus
7 was built among many groups, and that years of discussion
8 dating back to when Senator Pat Vance had this bill. So
9 I’m going to speak on this bill as if it were amended and
10 then, you know, I fully understand we have to go through
11 whatever process.
12 Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee and the
13 audience, every 16 hours in the United States, somebody is
14 fatally shot by their intimate partner. This somebody is
15 typically a woman. And this somebody is five times more
16 likely to be killed when guns are present in a domestic
17 violence situation.
18 W e ’ve heard about some mass shootings, none of
19 which have been in Pennsylvania, but Pennsylvania is not
20 immune to gun violence. According to the Pennsylvania
21 Coalition against Domestic Violence, in 2017, 117 men,
22 women, and children died as a result of domestic violence,
23 and 66 percent of these victims were killed by a firearm.
24 In fact, 2017 had the highest number of domestic violence
25 homicides by firearm in a decade. 42
1 Commonsense legislation like Senate Bill 501 or
2 House Bill 2060 can save lives and protect communities.
3 House Bill 2060 is a domestic violence bill with a firearm
4 component. It’s designed to reduce domestic violence and
5 to make sure that weapons are kept out of the hands of
6 someone who has already been deemed to be dangerous to that
7 victim.
8 The time when a victim of domestic violence seeks
9 help is really a dangerous time period for him or for her.
10 Whether that person has finally built up the guts through
11 the help of a local agency, friends, or family, they have
12 taken it all on the line in saying to the courts I need
13 help, I need protection, so do my kids or whomever else
14 might be involved. It’s a pretty gutsy time, and they're
15 doing it out of desperation. This explains why a Judge
16 will often order or grant a temporary protection from
17 abuse, and the Judge has the discretion at that time to ask
18 for relinquishment of some guns.
19 Then, the next process comes, getting an actual
20 PFA. And I've got to tell you, if you've not reviewed the
21 paperwork, the five pages of paperwork that you need to go
22 through and fill out to get a PFA, you should do so. It's
23 not some willy-nilly, you know, this guy's getting on my
24 nerves type of thing that you could -- this is a procedure
25 that's pretty darn in depth. 43
1 House Bill 2060 acts on recommendations from the
2 2016 Joint State Government Commission report on protection
3 from abuse orders in Pennsylvania, protection from abuse
4 orders, PFAs. They're an extremely important tool for a
5 victim to access safety, and in most cases, they're
6 effective, in most cases. But measures can be taken to
7 improve their effectiveness, and it's necessary that we
8 take these measures. Senate Bill 501 and House Bill 2060
9 will take those measures.
10 We all know that nothing's foolproof, but these
11 take us beyond an element of discretion and really takes
12 the weapons away from potential and abusers who have a
13 history of it. They're going to do this by doing the
14 following: making the relinquishment of firearms, weapons,
15 and ammunition mandatory, mandatory. When an abuser is
16 subject to a final PFA, the Judges will still have the
17 discretion as to what they want to do with the temporary
18 PFAs, as they do currently.
19 The bill would narrow the window of time that an
20 abuser has to relinquish their guns from 60 days, which is
21 current law, to 48 hours, with a misdemeanor conviction of
22 domestic violence.
23 And finally, the bill would remove from present
24 law what's the discretion of the Judge right now, and that
25 is to have the relinquishment of firearms given to a third 44
1 party. We call it the third-party intercept. This means
2 that someone who’s been told that they have to relinquish
3 their guns on a final PFA order has the ability to give it
4 to a family member or a friend or someone else they know.
5 This legislation upholds due process. Federal
6 and State laws already require the surrender of firearms in
7 convictions of misdemeanor crimes of domestic violence.
8 This is nothing new. Mandatory relinquishment will apply
9 only to the final PFAs. The Judges will continue to have
10 discretion on the temporary orders. I know I ’m repeating
11 myself. I ’ve said that before, but it’s an important
12 distinction to make.
13 When a Judge orders a final PFA, both the
14 plaintiff and the defendant will have the opportunity to be
15 heard in front of a Judge in an evidentiary hearing. They
16 can bring witnesses. They could be represented by an
17 attorney. It will give both parties the opportunity to
18 present testimony and to share the evidence of medical
19 records, police reports, photos, whatever would be standard
20 in a hearing. Only after this process has occurred will
21 relinquishment of firearms be mandated.
22 I find it very interesting, and I ’d like to share
23 with you, that the Pennsylvania State Police have provided
24 data that between the years 2011 to 2015, of the
25 discretionary judgment that a Judge has had to say 45
1 mandatory relinquishment, they’ve only exercised that in 13
2 to 14 percent of the cases. That means in one of seven
3 incidents is there mandatory relinquishment.
4 I ’ve not been able to track how many of those
5 have actually fallen into incidents where continued
6 domestic violence or even a death has occurred, but I can
7 tell you stories of those incidents right here in
8 Pennsylvania counties.
9 Very often, we hear in our district offices or
10 under the dome of this Capitol that we shouldn’t be
11 addressing the guns, that we should be addressing those
12 people who commit crimes with the guns. I believe this
13 bill does it. We are addressing the ownership of guns on a
14 temporary basis. Only while that PFA is in place are we
15 saying your guns are out of reach. And that’s what this
16 bill does.
17 This bill has been changed with the amendments in
18 the Senate to say that it’s not just relinquishment to a
19 sheriff or law enforcement but that a licensed gun dealer
20 or an attorney who is part of the court system can take
21 those guns. I think it’s a commonsense compromise that
22 would protect someone if they have family heirlooms or
23 whatever.
24 This bill’s been supported by the District
25 Attorneys, the Office of the Victim Advocate, the 46
1 Pennsylvania Coalition against Rape, Chief of Police, the
2 Sheriffs Association, Moms Demand Action, a number of
3 organizations in this room. And as I said in the
4 beginning, this bill has received 100 percent support by
5 way of a 50 to 0 vote in the Senate.
6 Mr. Chairman, I really appreciate your time for
7 the hearing. I appreciate the fact that previous speakers
8 have mentioned this bill. And I hope for and look forward
9 to working with you to pass this bill.
10 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: Well, thank you very
11 much for coming forward with your ideas, your bill, and
12 congratulations on your leadership with this. I think it’s
13 important that we look at moving this legislation.
14 Members, do you have any questions?
15 Representative Dawkins.
16 REPRESENTATIVE DAWKINS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
17 And I thank the Member for her testimony.
18 I agree; I also have a piece of legislation that
19 mirrors Senate Bill 501, which is House Bill 2097. But the
20 question I have for you is one of the comments you made
21 early on in your testimony. And I think it’s important.
22 And I ’m glad that the Chairman kind of set the stage that
23 w e ’re going to have an honest discussion today around this
24 issue around guns. And the statement you made that
25 Pennsylvania fortunately didn’t have any mass shootings. 47
1 And for an individual who represents an area who witnessed
2 mass shootings on a weekly basis, I would be remiss if I
3 didn’t correct that statement.
4 There is multiple discussions going on in this
5 Commonwealth around guns. One of the areas that I think is
6 overlooked is around the urban settings when we talk about
7 gun violence. We have trauma issues, we have shootings
8 that happen on a daily basis. Currently in the City of
9 Philadelphia, we have 76 homicides as of date. Last year,
10 we ended the year with 312 homicides to date, all through
11 gun violence.
12 And I want to make also the point that those acts
13 of violence was carried out with handguns and not what we
14 call assault rifles. And I think the focus has been around
15 this assault weapon, but the most dangerous weapon that we
16 have seen in my district is a handgun. And we have seen it
17 being committed by young people against young people
18 because of lack of resources or understanding of
19 consequences of their actions, mental health issues, family
20 being torn apart.
21 So as w e ’re having this debate today and this
22 discussion, open discussion, which I think is long overdue
23 and I ’m glad that I ’m a part of this body to have it, I
24 want us to keep the focus and the understanding that there
25 are many counties throughout this Commonwealth that are 48
1 suffering in silence because they’re not receiving that
2 same attention on this issue. And that can be for a host
3 of issues of why.
4 But I ’m here as an elected Member to ensure that
5 those issues stay in the forefront of this discussion and
6 this conversation because, as a collective body, I believe
7 we can start addressing some of those issues. And I just
8 wanted some clarity just to clarify that statement about
9 that mass shootings because I for one witnessed that in my
10 community roughly on a weekly basis.
11 So thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the time, just to
12 kind of put that out there. Thank you.
13 REPRESENTATIVE QUINN: Mr. Chairman, may I
14 comment?
15 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: Sure.
16 REPRESENTATIVE QUINN: Thank you very much. Your
17 comments are a credit to the work that you do in your
18 community, as well as to the work that w e ’re trying to do,
19 you know, through hearings like this right now.
20 I apologize if I was less than sensitive to the
21 daily occurrences that happen throughout the Commonwealth,
22 especially in the urban areas, as you mentioned.
23 Obviously, any loss of a human being deserves critical
24 attention. Thank you.
25 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: I ’d like to recognize 49
1 Representative White, who is a Member of the Committee, and
2 Representative Pickett, who is a nonmember, but we welcome
3 you as well, Representative Pickett.
4 Any other questions or -- Representative Miller.
5 REPRESENTATIVE MILLER: Thank you again, Mr.
6 Chairman. Hey, Marguerite. You know, sometimes, I ’ve
7 shared a joke once or twice with a couple people in this
8 Committee in relation, to be honest, of what my feeling
9 tends to be when we as a body on the Floor of the House
10 have a debate on constitutionality on any bill. I would
11 admit to you that I find it funny because, typically, the
12 vote is dependent upon which party made the motion much
13 more than any discussion as to really the constitutionality
14 of any question.
15 That being said, I asked Todd earlier regarding
16 some questions with due process, and I appreciate his
17 response with it. Obviously, I think, you know, Public
18 Defenders in particular are usually underpaid, like most
19 DAs, and under-supported. They get stretched a bit. The
20 reason why I bring it up is I just wanted to -- I didn’t
21 catch and I don’t think it is, but I just wanted to ask you
22 in relation to PFAs, you referenced people’s right to have
23 a counsel.
24 REPRESENTATIVE QUINN: Have a what? I missed
25 that. 50
1 REPRESENTATIVE MILLER: An attorney. And I
2 wonder if you did give any thoughts or have any thoughts as
3 to when it comes to the changes you’re suggesting, which
4 especially in the time frame -- by the way, totally
5 understand -- should there be or do you have a position as
6 to whether or not a counsel should be appointed -- kind of
7 like Todd’s bill in a different circumstance -- in relation
8 to one of the people in the PFA proceeding?
9 REPRESENTATIVE QUINN: I believe that both
10 parties that would be in the room are entitled and should
11 have counsel unless they waive the right and they wish to
12 represent themselves. If they’re unable to afford the
13 counsel, the Public Defender’s Office should be right there
14 for them.
15 REPRESENTATIVE MILLER: Okay. Thank you.
16 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: Any other questions,
17 Members?
18 Seeing none, thank you very much once again. The
19 Senate bill that was voted out of the Senate, it was
20 unanimous, is that correct?
21 REPRESENTATIVE QUINN: That is correct.
22 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: And then your bill
23 would be amended with the Senate language, is that correct?
24 REPRESENTATIVE QUINN: With your help -
25 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: Similar, okay. 51
1 REPRESENTATIVE QUINN: — Mr. Chairman.
2 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: Similar language.
3 Okay.
4 REPRESENTATIVE QUINN: That is my intention.
5 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: Okay. Thank you very
6 much -
7 REPRESENTATIVE QUINN: Thank you.
8 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: — once again for
9 your leadership on this.
10 REPRESENTATIVE QUINN: I appreciate yours as
11 well.
12 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: So we're going to go
13 to Representative Kampf next. Representative Kortz is in
14 an Education meeting with a bill that he has before the
15 Committee, so, Representative, come on up. Glad you're
16 here on time and before, we saw you over there, and
17 appreciate you being here on time. And you may begin,
18 Warren.
19 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
20 I did come here when the meeting started, and I
21 will maybe just state by way of introduction that I'm not a
22 gun owner. I don't know the mechanics of firearms terribly
23 well at all. But I know that I want to do something.
24 Just listening to the testimony, I hadn't thought
25 of this previously, but the day after Parkland happened, I 52
1 happened to go to my nine-year-old's elementary school.
2 She'd forgotten something or I had to drop something off,
3 and I remember buzzing through the doors and just having
4 this, you know, terrible set of thoughts about that
5 happening in her school. If that weren't enough to compel
6 me to try to do something, I'll tell you that where I live
7 there is a widely held sentiment -- I know it's the
8 majority; I think it's the vast majority of people want to
9 see changes to our gun laws. I know this because I've been
10 knocking on doors, I've been getting their emails, I've
11 been getting their phone calls.
12 I'm very grateful that this Committee and the
13 Chairman decided to have this hearing. I was with an
14 organization in Phoenixville Borough, which is in my
15 district, called the Social Concerns Committee, which for
16 the last 30 or 40 years has spent time thinking about
17 societal and social problems in the Borough of
18 Phoenixville, which is a small essentially urban area in my
19 district. And they called me in to talk to me about gun
20 violence. And when I told them that this Committee was
21 having these hearings, they were impressed. When they said
22 what are you doing about it, I said, well, the Judiciary
23 Committee is actually having open hearings on various bills
24 and issues related to this next week.
25 I also had Moms Demand Action in my office in 53
1 Paoli last week, an organization which is statewide but
2 they are a number of very active individuals in my district
3 who've come to see me on this, and I was able, to them, to
4 say that this Committee was having an open discussion on
5 these subjects, and I'm so grateful that I can tell my
6 constituents that we are serious about looking at these
7 matters.
8 House Bill 2216, my bill, is a ban on high-
9 capacity, anything over 10 projectiles, bullets, and a ban
10 on conversion devices. Some talk was about bump stocks. I
11 believe a conversion device is -- the definition of a bump
12 stock falls within that.
13 As a lawyer, you know, I certainly want to follow
14 the Second Amendment, but I don't think our courts have
15 said that firearms cannot be regulated. I believe these
16 regulations are constitutional and will be upheld. In
17 fact, I think a court in Massachusetts very recently, a
18 Federal court, upheld some similar provisions in the laws
19 of that State, so I think that's the case.
20 Mass shootings have involved these very large-
21 capacity magazines, and we talked a little bit about the
22 mass killing in Nevada and we know about that one
23 conversion device. If these limitations save a life, then
24 they were worth doing. And even if they don't, I
25 introduced this bill because I want to try. I want to try 54
1 to do something that might have a positive impact on this
2 problem that seems to not be going away and dare I say
3 seems to be growing.
4 I ’m totally grateful for any input on how this
5 bill might be improved. I haven’t heard any testimony from
6 here regarding bills, just to weigh in, Mr. Chairman, that
7 are before you, you know, that I disagree with. They seem
8 to be bills I would support. Representative Stephens has
9 been kind enough to include me on the conversation of the
10 "red flag” or the ERPO legislation, and I support that.
11 So that’s my testimony, Mr. Chairman. Thank you
12 very much.
13 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: Well, thank you for
14 coming forward, Warren -- I appreciate it very much -- with
15 your ideas and your concerns and your legislation.
16 Any questions from Members?
17 We are joined by Representative English, who is a
18 Member of the Committee.
19 Any questions or comments with Warren’s
20 testimony?
21 Representative Dean.
22 REPRESENTATIVE DEAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
23 And thank you, Representative, for your thoughtfulness on
24 the issue and your interest in moving legislation forward.
25 As you say, if it saves even one life, it makes a 55
1 difference.
2 And I wanted to share with you a feeling that I
3 had after Parkland. As much as I care about this issue -
4 and I think I ’ve been paying close attention -- I woke up
5 the next morning and thought a similar thought. I have a
6 six-year-old granddaughter who is in kindergarten, and it
7 occurred to me that I hadn’t really considered the idea
8 that she and her classmates have to prepare for active
9 shooter drills. It’s time that we protected the safety of
10 our children on the streets and in their schools and in
11 their churches.
12 So it’s a shuddering feeling to think the
13 thoughts that you thought when you walked in the door to
14 your daughter’s, your nine-year-old’s school. We ask so
15 much of our children. We impose such fear in our children.
16 We have a duty and responsibility to lift some of that
17 fear, and I think we can do it with leadership from the
18 Members of this Committee. Thanks.
19 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: Representative Costa.
20 REPRESENTATIVE COSTA: Yes, thank you,
21 Mr. Chairman.
22 I’d like to piggyback on that. One of the things
23 that I think that we need to do -- Representative Kampf,
24 thank you for coming in, and I understand where you’re
25 coming from -- is it’s important for us to do a lot of this 56
1 work on this gun issue, but let’s not forget the other
2 issue that is more reachable for us is securing our
3 schools. We need to, you know, work two fronts here. I
4 think the long-term front is going to be fighting the
5 firearm front, but I think a short-term and a quicker fix
6 is to make sure that our children are secure in the place
7 they’re being educated. And I think that we need to do
8 both. But it’s critical that we do something with the
9 guns, but it’s more critical in my belief right now that we
10 really start securing these schools because that’s
11 something that we can immediately do, but we need to put
12 the funding up.
13 So the long-term battle is to do the guns, and I
14 think -- like I said, like Representative Jozwiak said, I
15 believe a lot of this has to be done Federally because it
16 has to be across the board, but I don’t think that we
17 should wait for them to take action because we may be
18 waiting until the next century. You know, no disrespect to
19 our colleagues in the Federal Government, but they’re up
20 against it and it doesn’t seem like there’s a lot being
21 done on these fronts because they’re as busy as we are.
22 But I think we really need to start looking at a
23 two-prong approach here, and one of them is to make sure
24 our children are safe. Like you said, you were buzzed into
25 the school, no metal detector, no anything. You could have 57
1 been carrying anything. And in the very building that
2 w e ’re in, I ’m sure there are security leaks, and I can name
3 six, seven times a day that people walk in this building
4 that shouldn’t be in here that bypass the security.
5 So, again, as a former law enforcement officer, I
6 totally believe in a lot of the things w e ’ve been talking
7 about today and how important they are, but let’s not
8 forget if we really want to protect our children, let’s
9 start looking at our schools, too. Let’s just not put it
10 on the back burner because I think that’s something that we
11 can immediately do.
12 I was in the schools just last week, and I was
13 talking to the student council class, and basically, their
14 fear is with guns, but they fear more of coming to school
15 and not being safe. And they feel comfortable because the
16 school that I was in actually had a police officer who
17 worked on duty and security officers, and they understand
18 that they’re responsible for their own safety, too. You
19 come through a door, but they told me some of the things
20 that the school has done and implemented, and it’s very
21 encouraging. And I think we need to give the schools more
22 resources. We can’t give them unfunded mandates that,
23 here, you’re going to fix your school and you’re going to
24 secure it and the bill’s on you because when we do that, we
25 just take more away from our educational process for the 58
1 kids.
2 So, again, that's my take on it as a former law
3 enforcement. I want to work hard on this with the
4 firearms, but I want to get something that's more reachable
5 like a lower-hanging fruit that we cannot put aside and
6 protect our children.
7 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
8 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: So House Bill 2216 is
9 one of your bills, is that correct?
10 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: It is.
11 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: Is that what you
12 said?
13 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: Yes.
14 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: And what's the other
15 bill number or just the one you have? You mentioned two.
16 Well, you mentioned that you -
17 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: Yes, the bill is something
18 that I'm -
19 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: You support Todd's
20 bill?
21 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: — talking to Todd about,
22 but he's -
23 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: Yes.
24 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: — definitely done —
25 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: Okay. 59
1 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: — a lot of work on it.
2 Yes.
3 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: So 2216, you already
4 have that bill introduced of course. How many cosponsors
5 do you have about?
6 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: Looks like about 15 on
7 this printing.
8 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: Okay. All right.
9 Representative Jozwiak for a question?
10 REPRESENTATIVE JOZWIAK: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
11 I'd like to just comment, too, on what my brother
12 in law enforcement, Representative Costa, said. He was
13 right on the money on a lot of these things.
14 But, Warren, in your testimony you said you were
15 trying to ban conversion devices.
16 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: Um-hum.
17 REPRESENTATIVE JOZWIAK: What devices are you
18 talking about?
19 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: So the definition is the
20 term shall include -- we changed the definition of machine
21 gun in the draft, Representative. The term shall include
22 any part or combination of parts designed and intended to
23 accelerate the rate of fire of a semiautomatic firearm to
24 simulate the rate of fire of a machine gun.
25 REPRESENTATIVE JOZWIAK: Okay. I was a little 60
1 concerned when you said that because, you know, a lot of
2 people, hunters, they’ll go out and buy a rifle with a
3 wooden stock, and they’ll take the stock off and put a
4 composite stock on, and that’s a conversion device but it’s
5 not going to affect the acceleration of the firearm. So
6 thank you.
7 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: Any other questions?
8 Well, thanks, Representative Kampf -
9 REPRESENTATIVE KAMPF: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
10 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: — for — so our next
11 testifier is Representative William Kortz. Representative
12 Kortz, come forward. So like we said earlier, w e ’re giving
13 each Member around 15 minutes or so including questions, so
14 w e ’re doing pretty good with our time frame. So welcome,
15 and you may begin with your testimony.
16 REPRESENTATIVE KORTZ: Thank you. Well, thank
17 you, Mr. Chairman. And thank the Members of the Committee
18 for allowing us to come before you today.
19 I actually have two pieces of legislation that
20 I’ve put forward to deal with safe schools legislation, and
21 it actually started back in October when the school board,
22 one of my schools back home, had asked us about increasing
23 safety concerning the school Resource Officers Targeted
24 Grant Program. And they wanted us to get some money for
25 them, and we were looking at it and saw there was only $8.5 61
1 million in that program. What can we do to increase that?
2 Then, there was the biannual restriction, so you could only
3 get it possibly every other year. So then Parkland came
4 along and we had been talking about increasing it, so we
5 said we're going for it.
6 And House Bill 2150 basically puts $30 million
7 more into this Resource Officers Targeted Grant Program, so
8 in year one take it up to $38.5 million; year two we want
9 to add another $10 million, get it to $48 million; and then
10 the final third year, we'd get it to $50 million. That way
11 all 501 school districts could tap into that. And they
12 could do it annually. We'd take out the biannual
13 requirement, and that would give them approximately
14 $100,000.
15 What to do with that money? Well, in
16 consultation with my old roommate from college who just
17 retired from the FBI, we had a long conversation, what can
18 we do with these schools? He said, "Bill, you have to make
19 them hard targets. They're soft targets now." I said,
20 "Mike, please explain." He said, "You got to stop the bad
21 guy from getting in there." He said, "You've got to have
22 good, solid doors. You got to maybe have to redo the
23 foyers coming into the schools, the metal detectors,
24 cameras, sensors. The doors to the individual classrooms,
25 maybe you have to have a magnetic lock so that if there is 62
1 an intruder, a teacher can hit a button. They’re not
2 getting in the door to each individual classroom.” He
3 said, "You need to do something to the buildings to tighten
4 them up to make them hard targets."
5 Along with that, he said, "Bill, at the end of
6 the day, if a bad guy gets in there, you’ve got to have a
7 policeman in there that’s trained, that’ll take on that
8 guy, that active shooter, and stop him, mitigate what the
9 damage is."
10 So we put this bill out there that the schools
11 can use the money. There’s a companion bill to that, Mr.
12 Chairman. It’s House Bill 2149. It’s actually a tax
13 increase bill to pay for it. I went to Chairman Markosek’s
14 Committee and I asked him, "What would it take to get $30
15 million right now into that grant program?" And they came
16 back with, "Well, if you raise the PIT by .007 percent."
17 So right now, as we all know, we have the lowest PIT in the
18 Nation of the States that have the PIT. It’s a 3.07. So
19 if we changed that to 3.077, we get $31 million. That’s
20 what the appropriations staff came back with.
21 Now, that .007 increase, okay, only the working
22 people pay that. Seniors that are retired don’t pay that
23 in Pennsylvania. The children don’t pay that if they’re
24 not working. It’s only the working folks pay that, and
25 it’s basically pennies per paycheck, pennies per paycheck 63
1 to protect our children. And we need to tighten up these
2 schools. We need to take the initiative and the leadership
3 position as adults and protect our children because they
4 are at risk.
5 And with that, I ’d be happy to answer any
6 questions you may have.
7 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: So with your
8 proposals, have you talked with or have you presented your
9 ideas to the Education Committee as well? I know they had
10 hearings. Chairman Hickernell had hearings. I think he
11 has them more I think in the future. Have you talked with
12 that -
13 REPRESENTATIVE KORTZ: I have not had that
14 opportunity yet, Mr. Chairman.
15 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: Okay. And then the
16 Appropriations Chair as well -
17 REPRESENTATIVE KORTZ: I ’ve talked to Joe
18 Markosek and -
19 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: Okay.
20 REPRESENTATIVE KORTZ: — his people. That’s the
21 only -- as far as I ’ve gotten on -
22 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: So what kind of
23 reaction did you get, supportive response from -
24 REPRESENTATIVE KORTZ: Chairman Markosek was —
25 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: Okay. 64
1 REPRESENTATIVE KORTZ: — agreeable to it. We
2 have about I believe 34 cosponsors. I don’t have the bill
3 in front of me; I apologize. I believe there’s 32 or 34
4 cosponsors to House Bill 2150, and I think I have 12 or 13
5 on the tax bill to pay for 2149. And by the way, that
6 money would be specific just for the safe schools. It
7 could go nowhere else.
8 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: Right. Okay.
9 REPRESENTATIVE KORTZ: But there’s much more to
10 be done, I agree, sir.
11 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: Yes. Yes. Okay.
12 Questions from Members?
13 Representative Costa.
14 REPRESENTATIVE COSTA: Just a comment. We didn’t
15 choreograph this, you know. When I said about the two-
16 prong approach, it worked out perfectly, Representative
17 Kortz, he came in, because we said we have to lock down our
18 schools and make them safe, along with the other, so I
19 thank you for, you know, your bill and stuff like that.
20 But it definitely wasn’t choreographed but it is necessary.
21 Thank you.
22 REPRESENTATIVE KORTZ: You’re welcome.
23 REPRESENTATIVE COSTA: Thank you, Chairman.
24 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: Representative
25 Barbin. 65
1 REPRESENTATIVE BARBIN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
2 And, Bill, thank you for the two bills. I will
3 cosponsor the first one which says that we should spend the
4 $30 million to fortify the schools. I won't cosponsor the
5 second one because we have more than enough money to take
6 care of this problem without raising any taxes. And I
7 would just like you to consider this.
8 Right now, we spend almost $600 million on cyber
9 schools. Now, you can't break into a cyber school. And
10 those cyber schools get paid on average almost $14,000 per
11 student. The money could be -- if we just used the money a
12 little better on cyber schools if we decide to -- you know,
13 if we're going to have them, we spend more money on those
14 than anything else, and I'm going to try to work on an
15 amendment that would say we should transfer some of that
16 money to where the kids really do need to be protected.
17 I also think you're 100 percent on when we're
18 dealing with grants to provide armed security in the
19 school. We don't need someone who's not trained to use a
20 firearm in school. We need someone who's not only trained
21 to use a firearm in the school to protect the kids but also
22 someone that can actually make the kids feel like they can
23 help stop or prevent the problem.
24 I rode back from Washington this morning on the
25 Metro. They have a big sign in each one of the subway 66
1 trains that says, "Here's an email address. You want to
2 make the Metro safer, dial into the email, send us an
3 email." I think that if you had a police officer in a
4 school and you used emails that the kids could send out,
5 you would make the schools much safer. But it's that
6 resource officer that's going to make it safer.
7 Thank you for your bill.
8 REPRESENTATIVE KORTZ: Well, thank you for your
9 comments, and if we can get the money from somewhere else,
10 that'd be great. I didn't even think about that idea, but,
11 Representative, I'd be supportive of it.
12 Concerning the active policeman in the school,
13 right now, I have several school districts that do have
14 that, and one of the school district -- I don't want to
15 mention a name -- one of the gentleman is a retired FBI
16 agent, and he's in there in plainclothes. The kids love
17 him. He lives in the district. And they talk with him all
18 the time. When I go up there, I see him from time to time
19 in the school, and he's always engaged with the students.
20 And he's packing and he's fully trained and ready to
21 respond if there's a problem.
22 So there are some schools that are actually doing
23 this right now, but we need to tighten up the buildings.
24 That's one of the problems. We need to tighten up the
25 buildings. 67
1 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: Representative
2 Schemel.
3 REPRESENTATIVE SCHEMEL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
4 This is something I ’ve done a fair amount of
5 research over the last few weeks, and I ’ve talked to school
6 safety officers, also local police and representatives from
7 the school in regard to hardening buildings. And one of
8 the challenges -- and I also look to add the mass shooting
9 events, which I found is categorized by the FBI as any
10 shooting over four and a fair number over time. One of the
11 challenges or a number of the challenges that I see is
12 that, number one, most of these shootings are perpetrated
13 by individuals who are rather familiar with the facility.
14 They know when people come and go, they know what doors
15 open when and where. They know if there’s a security guard
16 and where they are generally at different times of the day.
17 So I wonder how effective you can be -- we can
18 spend an immense amount of money on schools or other public
19 buildings to fortify them, but if we do, w e ’re still
20 dealing with someone who thinks through the plan, is
21 familiar with the facility. Children come out of their
22 rooms, they have passing periods. Children go to the
23 playground, children go out to the sports fields to play
24 sports. Children come and go, you know, in the morning and
25 the afternoon. So they’re only actually in their 68
1 classrooms where they would be fortified or in certain
2 parts of the building at certain times. Doors open and
3 close. Even locked doors open and close. When you're a
4 student in a school, you know the rhythm of the school, you
5 know the layout of the school, you know what doors open and
6 close.
7 And so the individuals with whom I've spoken said
8 we're probably spending a lot of money on something that is
9 almost a Sisyphean task. You know, we can't fortify the
10 school enough. And so it's an open question. I'm trying
11 to sort of discover this for myself as to whether that is
12 possible.
13 As I talk to educators, one of the concerns that
14 they have is what does it do to the child when they are in
15 a school that is effectively a prison? What does it do to
16 the psyche of the child?
17 So these incidents that we have in the country,
18 they get a lot of attention. Statistically, they're
19 actually very few of them. But there are a lot of children
20 in schools. So if we spend a lot of our limited resources
21 to fortify school buildings and put all of our children in
22 schools that are effectively prisons to eliminate something
23 that is unlikely to happen to them -- that's not to say we
24 shouldn't do anything about it -- but I'm thinking through
25 the whole process. Is that where we put attention and 69
1 resources? And is it an attainable objective?
2 So I ’m sure you’ve thought about it, too, so I ’m
3 sort of curious what your thoughts or from your own
4 research are on those same questions.
5 REPRESENTATIVE KORTZ: Well, it’s a very good
6 question, and it’s a very difficult one to answer because
7 you’re exactly right; a lot of children go outside and
8 play. There’s gymnasium doors sometimes when they’re
9 having basketball games if it’s hot, you know, in the
10 springtime or early in September, they’ll open the doors.
11 There’s all those type of issues. In fact, when we had a
12 hearing down in Canonsburg in Representative Snyder’s area,
13 that very issue was brought up. And we talked with the
14 folks, and they said, "Maybe we need to air condition these
15 places so we don’t open these doors anymore."
16 But you’re exactly right; there’s other doors and
17 the kids that are in there or have gone to school there
18 such as this young man that came back to Parkland, he knows
19 the layout of the school. But I ’ll come back to what I
20 said earlier. If we do nothing, in my opinion, it’s
21 unacceptable. We have to do something. Something as
22 simple as having a magnetic lock on a teacher’s door so if
23 someone comes in the school and does get in there, if you
24 can lock these doors -- and a lot of them you can’t lock
25 now. If he can’t get in the classroom to get the kids, at 70
1 least they’re safe. At least they’re safe. So, I mean,
2 that’s a simple fix, right? Think about it. A magnetic
3 lock on individual classroom doors, you can protect the
4 students that are in those rooms.
5 So yes, it’s challenging. I don’t have all the
6 answers to that, Representative. It’s something that
7 experts would need to look at, but we have to do something.
8 Doing nothing is unacceptable as far as I ’m concerned. Our
9 children -- and it’s sad to say, but in today’s society,
10 our children are becoming targets, and it’s unacceptable,
11 unacceptable.
12 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: Representative
13 Miller.
14 REPRESENTATIVE MILLER: Thanks again, Mr.
15 Chairman.
16 And, Bill, thanks for your thoughts today.
17 REPRESENTATIVE KORTZ: Yes.
18 REPRESENTATIVE MILLER: A question for you.
19 Almost coming off of the last questioner as well, so I have
20 talked to a variety of my school districts. I know you and
21 I share a school district in particular as well. And we
22 have school districts that have a variety of thoughts on
23 the matter, needs and questions and how they analyze their
24 own safety and needs of the school district. Some of them
25 have remodeled schools, taking the, you know, vestibules, 71
1 you know, closed vestibule recommendations. Some of them
2 have doubled-down on sort of video cameras. You know,
3 there's a whole variety of things that different school
4 districts have done for themselves.
5 The one thing, though, that I keep getting from
6 every one of them, and some of them would say yes, I need a
7 little more help on the infrastructure side, some of them
8 would say I need help with trained police presence in the
9 school district, every one of them tell me we need help
10 with more counselors and mental health experts. So they
11 say the best thing that they would like to do from their
12 perspective is to have more assistance from the State,
13 whether it be ratio-based or something else, to come up
14 there and say, listen, we need help in reaching out to our
15 kids.
16 And so I wonder -- and I apologize because I
17 don't know this -- does your bill provide for the
18 flexibility of a school district to apply for a grant? And
19 let's just say they did not -- looking at their needs,
20 working with their local population, they felt that, for
21 whatever reason, the infrastructure was okay, the SRO was
22 being addressed in a different way, but they said, you know
23 what? Our school's safety needs would be best met by
24 having an increased in counseling available. Is that
25 something that can work through your program? 72
1 REPRESENTATIVE KORTZ: Well, this legislation, as
2 we proposed it, after year one, two, or three, whatever
3 money we want each school district, all 501, to get so much
4 money, and at the end of year three, it’d be $100,000.
5 Now, if you take care of all those things that you need as
6 far as infrastructure, better doors, magnetic locks, metal
7 detectors, whatever those needs are, and the training and
8 the resource officer, okay, if you take care of all that
9 stuff, sure, why not? I intend to let the school keep
10 getting that $100,000 every year, wherever it’s best
11 served. Once you tighten up your infrastructure, why not
12 use it for other things, as you’ve said?
13 REPRESENTATIVE MILLER: And I apologize, Bill.
14 Just so I understand, in order for them to get to that
15 position where they would have the flexibility for
16 counseling assistance, they would have to, if I ’m
17 understanding you correctly with it, they’d have to first
18 address in some satisfactory component the infrastructure
19 or SRO -- for lack of a better term -- priorities that your
20 bill says should come first?
21 REPRESENTATIVE KORTZ: That should come first.
22 We ’ve got to tighten up these buildings. And I ’ll go back
23 to what my old roommate said. He said, "Bill, look,
24 they’re not getting in our FBI building. If a bad guy
25 wants to get in, they’re not getting in. And if he ran 73
1 through it with a tank, everybody in there is packing.
2 He’s not going to get anywhere.” Now, I ’m not suggesting
3 that everybody in the school is packing. Please don’t take
4 it that way. I ’m not. All I ’m saying is we need to
5 tighten up the school and make them hard targets.
6 REPRESENTATIVE MILLER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
7 Thank you, Bill.
8 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: W e ’ve also been
9 joined by Representative Frank Ryan, Representative Cephas,
10 and Representative Comitta. So welcome, and we, like I
11 said before, encourage Members of the House to attend these
12 hearings, and we appreciate you being here.
13 Representative Stephens for a question.
14 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: Thank you,
15 Mr. Chairman.
16 Representative, I think you’re right on target;
17 pardon the pun. I think we need to take a look at our
18 schools the same way, frankly, we took a look at our
19 airports and airplanes after 9/11. You know -
20 REPRESENTATIVE KORTZ: Exactly.
21 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: -- after 9/11, we as a
22 country came together and said never again. We will not
23 let people turn our airliners into in essence missiles for
24 our buildings. And we invested a lot of money as a
25 country, and, you know, if you would have told me before 74
1 9/11 I was going to have to take my shoes off to get onto
2 an airplane and I wasn't going to be allowed to carry a
3 bottle of water that I purchased out on the street onto a
4 plane, I would have told you you were crazy. But in the
5 end we just decided as a country we were not going to
6 tolerate people using our airports and airplanes in that
7 manner.
8 And so, you know, I think it's critical that,
9 just as the same as we did before, you know, we fortified
10 cockpits, we now have CT scanners at every airport in the
11 country, an air marshal program. I mean, I think we have
12 to rethink the way that school security is handled in our
13 schools, and I think that capital improvements are a
14 critical part of that.
15 I'm a cosponsor of your legislation -
16 REPRESENTATIVE KORTZ: Thank you.
17 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: — to do that. Have
18 you done any research -- in Indiana, they have that sort of
19 model secure school. I don't know if you've seen that.
20 REPRESENTATIVE KORTZ: I have not.
21 REPRESENTATIVE STEPHENS: I could send you the
22 article, but it's pretty remarkable. And, you know, it's
23 such that individual parts of the building can be secured
24 in the event of a shooting situation. There can be direct
25 communication from each classroom with law enforcement so 75
1 that law enforcement can gauge an indication of where
2 medical attention is needed, where the shooter may be.
3 They actually can deploy smoke in a particular area to
4 confuse and disorient a shooter if necessary. I mean,
5 there's some pretty incredible features there.
6 And I'm not a security expert, but we have
7 security experts across this country that can help design a
8 school that does not look like a prison, does not feel like
9 a prison, and in fact is not a prison, but is nonetheless
10 safe and secure for our kids.
11 I was really moved -- I know Representative Dean
12 mentioned it and a couple others. You know, on the day of
13 the walkout, I met with a number of high school students,
14 and I had a young lady from my district in tears repeatedly
15 through our conversation, describing the anxiety that she
16 feels during the active shooter drills. She said, "Just
17 imagine, the alarm goes off, and we all huddle into a
18 corner that's not near the door or near the window. The
19 teacher goes over and shuts the door and shuts the light
20 off, and we sit there. And we don't know if it's a drill
21 or if it's real." And so she said to me, she said, "I
22 don't know if my friends are being killed downstairs or if
23 any minute someone's coming through my classroom door to
24 kill me." And she was terrified, understandably so.
25 And so to the extent that we can improve the 76
1 capital infrastructure surrounding these schools to provide
2 a safer environment for our kids, I applaud your efforts,
3 and I ’d encourage you to check out what they’ve done in
4 Indiana, and maybe we can utilize some of the same
5 resources and personnel that they did in designing their
6 system here in PA.
7 REPRESENTATIVE KORTZ: Sure. I ’m open to all
8 ideas and amendments, however we can improve it. I have
9 not checked into the Indiana schools, but I ’m sure there’s
10 experts out there that could come in and assess our schools
11 and say here’s what you really need because they’re all
12 built differently. They’re all different.
13 And I would like to say this: One of my school
14 districts, Baldwin-Whitehall, they did a modification about
15 10 years ago, and their entranceway for visitors, it’s a
16 very secure foyer. And the glass there -- there’s a guard
17 there, but the glass, you can tell it’s bulletproof. And
18 you’re not getting in that school. I mean, they got
19 magnetic-lock doors, and they did this 10 years ago. They
20 just did it on their own. And that foyer, you go in there,
21 you’re not going to penetrate into that building. So it’s
22 just one of the things that came to mind in discussions
23 with this, and I just wanted to share that with the group.
24 But thank you, Representative. I appreciate your comments.
25 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: Questions? No other 77
1 questions? Well, thanks, Bill, for coming before the
2 Committee with your ideas. I appreciate it very much.
3 REPRESENTATIVE KORTZ: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
4 I appreciate it. Thank you.
5 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: Our next testifier is
6 Representative Pam DeLissio. Yes, we're on track with our
7 time. Good afternoon.
8 REPRESENTATIVE DELISSIO: Good afternoon.
9 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: How are you doing?
10 REPRESENTATIVE DELISSIO: Thank you.
11 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: Good. You may begin.
12 REPRESENTATIVE DELISSIO: Thank you. And thank
13 you, Chairman, for hosting this opportunity, truly grateful
14 and grateful on behalf of my constituents.
15 I was only here for the last 10 or 15 minutes, so
16 I'm not sure how the rest of the hearing has gone or the
17 nature of the testimony, so perhaps I've taken a little bit
18 of a different approach to sharing thoughts on this issue.
19 First of all, when I first came into office,
20 first ran for office back in 2010, I had a member of my
21 staff who was a good solid mid-State Republican from
22 Elizabethville. And I asked him if he would give me the
23 101 on this discussion about guns, gun safety, gun control
24 because even from southeastern PA I was very sensitive to
25 the fact that when this subject came up, it got -- please, 78
1 no pun intended -- it was an explosive conversation, and I
2 wanted to know why. And this gentleman was great. And we
3 spent a good couple of hours together, and he explained to
4 me the different types of guns, the different types of
5 ammo, the training that was available, et cetera, et
6 cetera. And this very reasonable man, I said, "Well, why
7 is it that this discussion never seems to advance?" And he
8 said he honestly and truly didn’t know. And he had lived
9 his life around guns, his entire life. They were part of
10 his lifestyle. They’re not part of mine.
11 And he thought that one concern was that a lot of
12 people thought this was sort of a slippery-slope discussion
13 so that if there is anything that were to be done, then in
14 fact more things could be done and when would it stop? And
15 I ’ve heard that argument for the 7-1/2 years I ’ve been in
16 the Legislature on any number of topics, that if we do
17 this, it could be a slippery slope.
18 But I am the type of person who looks at the root
19 cause, and if we don’t look at the root cause of any event,
20 we are just destined to repeat it time after time. And
21 hearing over the last 10 or 15 minutes this discussion
22 about how we secure schools to make them safer for our
23 children to be educated in, I was struck by the fact that,
24 so today, w e ’re talking about how to secure our schools but
25 what about the nightclubs? That happened in Orlando, 79
1 Florida. That was a nightclub. Virginia Tech’s campus, a
2 post-secondary school where people are voluntarily there
3 for more education. Congresswoman Giffords was shot
4 outside a supermarket in the State of Arizona. A movie
5 theater in Aurora, Colorado. And the concert in Las Vegas.
6 We cannot possibly or reasonably try to be securing all of
7 these venues. We will back here time and time and time
8 again.
9 And I can only imagine what that will feel like
10 at the end of the day, that we can’t move because we are
11 always clearing security because there may be a situation
12 where somebody has a weapon that perhaps should not or has
13 a weapon they’re about to use in a way they should not be
14 using it.
15 So this morning, before I left for Harrisburg, I
16 asked my constituents to please share with me their
17 thoughts on gun safety legislation. And if I may, Mr.
18 Chairman, they’re rather short. I ’m going to read them.
19 And because they’re on Facebook, they are public, so I will
20 read them with attribution.
21 So Anne O ’Connell Umbrecht, she was rather
22 surprised that only Members could testify. She thought
23 then these were not truly hearings but uninformed debates.
24 I’m just sharing.
25 Kathy Berns: "I definitely support universal 80
1 background checks and banning assault weapons and bump
2 stocks, but improving mental health services are critical,
3 too, if we are serious about reducing gun violence.”
4 Chris Saffa: "Urging the passage of the most
5 restrictive gun laws possible, enough."
6 Joanna Berger: "Adopt Australian gun laws."
7 Laura McMeans: "Take power away from the NRA.
8 They need to stop buying our politicians."
9 Jack Kennedy: "Assault weapons are already
10 illegal. How would you expand background checks? And how
11 would any of this stop criminal elements? Let me not
12 discuss improving school safety. That implies criticism of
13 the untouchable education lobby. Common sense is usually
14 mentioned in the context of its absence, and that is
15 nowhere more apparent than in the current debate. But much
16 of this discussion is simply camouflage for undermining the
17 Second Amendment anyway."
18 Janice Strauder: "Please ask for a clear
19 definition of assault weapons. I've never heard a straight
20 answer from either side of the issue. This is
21 problematic."
22 Sarah Eve: "Universal background checks, bans on
23 guns/add-ons that could kill many people in a matter of
24 seconds. Keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers.
25 Also, I'm not sure if PA has this, but I think a certain 81
1 number of hours of gun use/safety training should be a
2 requirement for anyone who wants to purchase or own a gun,
3 and they should be required to get retrained every so
4 often. Is there any way to require and enforce use of gun
5 locks to keep out of hands of children? Does this already
6 exist in PA? Lastly, we definitely need to invest in
7 mental health, and I say this with more weight toward
8 suicide prevention.”
9 Angela Merry: ”Yes to universal background
10 checks, banning assault weapons and bump stocks. I am also
11 for gun registration just like cars.”
12 Darlene Presto Deck: "Thank you for your good
13 work and advocacy. I ’m so grateful for your thorough,
14 thoughtful work. I would ask that in discussion about gun
15 violence, the terms mental health and mental illness be
16 substituted with a more specific phrase such as danger to
17 self or others. We must differentiate between the kinds of
18 issues that play a role in gun violence and the kinds of
19 issues that make one more likely to be a victim.”
20 Tina Amacone Jepp: ''Just addressing school
21 safety does not address the issue of gun violence.
22 Churches, concerts, places of business, clubs, et cetera,
23 have been victims of gun violence. Guns are the issue.
24 Limit on the amount of guns being manufactured. More
25 comprehensive background checks with competency, licensing, 82
1 and mental health requirements renewable every two years.
2 There is no way to predict when a law-abiding citizen turns
3 into a crazy person. The licensing must be renewed.
4 Strict punishments when someone's guns are used in a crime
5 or someone without a license commits a crime with a gun, a
6 mandatory 10-year sentence and surrender of all weapons.
7 Better health benefits for mental health problems. Often,
8 people who are medicated do not take their medication.
9 Prescribed drugs which will show in blood tests with
10 mandatory appointments and testing only for those
11 identified with certain mental illnesses. Education of
12 citizens for the recognition and reporting of potential gun
13 violence. Ban weapons that are assault-style, high-
14 capacity magazines, bump stocks, et cetera, that enable a
15 weapon to shoot multiple rounds in seconds. A
16 comprehensive data system that can track registrations,
17 licenses, multiple purchases in a short period of time,
18 resales, et cetera, that also interfaces with mental health
19 diagnoses, domestic violence complaints, and protection
20 from abuse orders."
21 Mr. Chairman, I have townhalls, as many of you
22 know, regularly. My 72nd townhall is this month. I
23 listen, as I'm sure all of us do, very closely to our
24 constituents. I often say at a townhall if there were a
25 corner on genius up here, we would have no problems in the 83
1 Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The solutions don't rest
2 entirely here. The responsibility for finding those
3 solutions does indeed rest entirely here. So I often will
4 consult with and dialogue with my constituents to get the
5 benefit of their experience, their expertise, and their
6 thoughts on the issue. It's the only way I know how to
7 represent.
8 Now, I've looked through that list of legislation
9 that is pending in the House presently. There has got to
10 be a couple of dozen pieces of legislation, some of it
11 iterations on the theme, some of it very different than
12 others. My concern is, as we go forward, that, number one,
13 we do go forward and that these hearings -- and again, I
14 can't thank you enough for the opportunity for these
15 hearings -- will wrap up next week, and we identify clearly
16 what those next steps may be.
17 We need to ensure that -- I have assured my
18 constituents that it has never been my intent to take away
19 anybody's Second Amendment rights. And I've said that
20 very, very publicly. I think that is an absolute concern,
21 and that drives a number of our citizens in Pennsylvania to
22 respond the way that they do.
23 Now, you know, I think the majority of the
24 constituents who weighed in this morning had fairly -- I
25 don't even like to use the word reasonable and common sense 84
1 because it’s become too trite in this conversation.
2 They’ve offered thoughts that are worthy of consideration.
3 And I look forward to hearing further dialogue at these
4 hearings over the next couple of days. I look forward to
5 thoughtfully seeing what the Judiciary Committee is going
6 to do first because, as a Member not of the Committee but
7 as obviously a Member of the House, my opportunity to
8 participate in active dialogue and debate will end here
9 today as far as the Committee goes, but I look forward to
10 that on the Floor.
11 And I sincerely hope before this session ends
12 this year, which will be earlier than not because it is an
13 election year, that we have the opportunity to move this
14 discussion forward in a very definitive way.
15 Mr. Chairman, thank you, and I ’m happy to answer
16 any questions or take any responses.
17 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: Well, thank you very
18 much for being here. I appreciate your ideas and also
19 hearing from your constituents as well.
20 So any other questions from Members? No
21 questions. So we appreciate your time.
22 REPRESENTATIVE DELISSIO: Thank you, Mr.
23 Chairman.
24 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN MARSICO: Thank you.
25 So this concludes today’s hearing. We will 85
1 reconvene tomorrow morning at 10:00 a.m. in this caucus
2 room. Representative Dush, Schlossberg, Santora, and
3 Comitta will be testifying tomorrow at 10:00 a.m.
4 So I want to thank the Members of the Committee
5 for being here and also the public. So w e ’ll reconvene
6 tomorrow. Thank you.
7
8 (The hearing concluded at 12:49 p.m.) 86
1 I hereby certify that the foregoing proceedings
2 are a true and accurate transcription produced from audio
3 on the said proceedings and that this is a correct
4 transcript of the same.
5
6
7 Christy Snyder
8 Transcriptionist
9 Diaz Transcription Services