Philadelphia Daily News Smears Florida/PA Reciprocity

Many of you have no doubt seen this article in the Philadelphia Daily News, outlining the completely lawful practice of Pennsylvanians obtaining concealed carry licenses from the State of Florida, and using that license to carry in Pennsylvania, a "loophole." We are currently working on a more detailed rebuttal to this article, but in the mean time we thought we would share with you our statement to the Daily News reporter when we were asked to comment on this issue:

As most gun owners in Pennsylvania know, owning or carrying a firearm in the city of Philadelphia can be risky given the history of abuses by the city's police department. Under current PPD policy, law abiding carry license holders have had their license revoked for being victims of theft, including having their houses broken into. At PAFOA, we've also had reports of the police department illegally revoking permits of members issued by other counties when the victim's car was broken into while visiting the city.

In fact, the abuse of license holders is reflected by the PPD's inexplicable permit revocation rate of nearly 12%, while every other county (including Allegheny which contains Pittsburgh) is well below 1%. When the stats are run, Philadelphia is responsible for  30-40% of all carry permit revocations in the entire state each year.

As a result, it is not surprising that some gun owners may opt for the more uniform standards of another state license over the discriminatory abuses of the Philadelphia Police Department. In times of tighter budgets, some gun owners may also opt to carry only one license from a state which is more widely recognized than ours instead of getting multiple.

If you have any further questions, please feel free to ask.