This includes Pennsylvania.
However, a particular segment of its state code has licensed firearm dealers subject to these unconstitutional warrantless searches. According to the code, dealers are forced to sign a Pennsylvania State Police’s (PSP) promulgation.
This means these licensed gun shop owners agree to abdicate their Fourth Amendment rights. Not only is this state regulation blatantly unconstitutional, but it is not even being carried out in the way it was intended.
This is the letter of the code forced on applicants for state gun licenses.
“By signing the application, the applicant is acknowledging that if a license be granted, the applicant gives permission to the Pennsylvania State Police, or their designee, and the issuing authority to come to the licensee’s business location and inspect the premises, records, and documents without a warrant, to ensure compliance with this chapter, and the act.”
In other words, to get a state license to sell firearms, a person or business is forced to throw their constitutional rights out of the window.
Further, the state legislature never granted statutory powers to a state agency to make such a regulation. In other words, the situation was begging for a lawsuit.
That came on June 19 from the Second Amendment Foundation on behalf of a pair of plaintiffs, Shot Tec LLC, and Grant Schmidt. The suit was filed against Pennsylvania State Police Commissioner Christopher Paris and Montgomery County Sheriff Sean Kilkenny.
It stated that it targeted the PSP’s “unconstitutional regulation purporting to authorize warrantless searches of PA License to Sell Firearm licensees and Sheriff Kilkenny’s policy.
Specifically, Kilkenny is accused of going far past the boundaries of the already unconstitutional regulation. The filing said he acted “to not only seize licensees in the absence of probable cause and a warrant, but to also force them to respond to questions and provide any requested documents.”
Kilkenny recently announced a department policy that clearly circumvents state law and the Constitution.
He asserted that deputies may not only conduct a warrantless search of licensed firearm dealers, but they may hold the licensee or representatives for up to two hours and compel them to respond to questioning.
And not only does he contend that he may revoke licenses over violations of “safe storage,” which was never defined by the PSP, he believes he as a practicing attorney may revoke the licenses for resistance to his unconstitutional actions.
The Fourth Amendment is clearly at issue with this overly burdensome state requirement, but Second Amendment freedoms are also at stake. Obviously, these firearms retailers are targeted for the nature of their wares, though they are protected by the Constitution.
Last year’s landmark Bruen decision by the U.S. Supreme Court was not vague — there must be historical precedent and a tradition of regulations for the law to stand.
For anyone to say that there is a tradition of gun regulations in the nation in the line of what Pennsylvania enacted is laughable. Further, there is not even a statute in the state with this requirement to allow a warrantless search, it was merely enacted as code.
The code in general and the actions of this particular sheriff are the textbook definition of “rogue.” Throwing the Constitution out of the window for any reason is never a great idea, and it certainly is not allowable for the clear reason of bullying a perfectly legal business.
This suit bears close watching and deserves the support of every American who cherishes their gun rights.
