Can a Felon Get a Hunting License in Pa
In the 1990s, John Wolfe lost the right to carry a gun.
But Wolfe bought hunting licenses for many years without running into a problem.
Wolfe used a shotgun that he bought when he was about 18 to shoot a most eleven-inch turkey.
Then one Dec morning in 2014, Wolfe decided to go hunting before work. He got defenseless past game wardens. A judge found him guilty of illegal gun possession in 2016. He now faces two-and-a-half to five years in state prison.
Wolfe's case points to a loophole in Pennsylvania's gun laws. Each twelvemonth, hundreds of thousands of people purchase hunting licenses. That allows them to hunt deer, turkey and other animals in the forest while carrying a gun.
Only under state police force, people don't demand to pass any type of background check to confirm it's legal for them to possess a gun in guild to get a hunting license. There's too no groundwork check for a Sportsman's Firearm Let, which allows people to comport a handgun for hunting purposes.
This tin can put game wardens in dangerous situations.
Lookout man, the dangers of being a game warden (story continues beneath):
In 2010, Christopher Johnson was suspected of illegally shooting a deer on a rural road near Gettysburg. David Grove, a game warden, stopped him. Johnson was a convicted felon, then he wasn't allowed to possess a gun. He had a valid hunting license, according to Pennsylvania Game Commission Assistant Counsel Jason Raup.
Johnson told a passenger in his car he wasn't going back to jail, the passenger testified afterwards.
Johnson opened burn down and shot Grove. Grove died instantly. Johnson was convicted and sentenced to the death penalty, which was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Courtroom in 2015.
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Few arrests
The York Daily Record/Sunday News reviewed most four years of cases in which someone who was banned from possessing a gun was charged with illegal firearm possession in the York County Court of Common Pleas.
Of those more than 400 cases, 4 were related to hunting. In two of those cases, a person was caught while hunting. In two others, men were arrested for DUI and told police they had been hunting earlier.
How to become a Pa. hunting license (story continues below):
Nether federal law, all felonies and some misdemeanor convictions brand it illegal for people to possess a gun. But specific hunting license information in Pennsylvania, such equally the names of those with licenses, is not public under the Game and Wild fauna Code. So it's non possible to check the records on all of the people granted hunting licenses to see if they have criminal convictions that make it illegal for them to possess guns.
In states where license data is public, reporters have found large numbers of convicted felons hunting illegally.
In 2006, an Associated Press investigation showed that at least 660 felons on parole or probation received tags that allowed them to hunt with rifles or shotguns in Montana. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette found most 4,800 felons bought hunting licenses during the 2007-08 hunting season. At least 859 hunted with a muzzleloader or a modern gun.
Few, if any, states verify that someone is allowed to possess a gun when they issue a hunting license.
But some states have stricter requirements than Pennsylvania for full general gun and ammunition possession.
Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts and New Jersey require a firearms license to purchase or possess ammunition, co-ordinate to the Giffords Police Centre to Preclude Gun Violence. Illinois and Massachusetts require a license to ain a firearm.
Massachusetts doesn't take a background check system for hunting licenses. Simply Jim Wallace, executive manager of the Gun Owners Action League in Massachusetts, said he thinks the strict gun laws in the state accept kept people with criminal convictions from hunting.
In fact, he thinks it's kept too many people from hunting. Wallace said the ban winds up covering people who made foolish mistakes decades ago but aren't dangerous.
Some states warn people they can't hunt if they are banned from possessing a gun.
In Maine, there is no check to confirm people can possess a gun when they apply for a hunting license, but they have to disclose whether they are a convicted felon. If they lie, they could face charges of unsworn falsification and fraudulently obtaining a license.
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In Rhode Isle, the hunting license awarding says people convicted of certain crimes, including sexual assail and felony drug delivery, tin can't buy or possess a hunting license. If they do, they could exist punished with a $500 fine and up to 90 days in jail.
Raup said this warning isn't included on Pennsylvania hunting license applications. He wasn't aware of any instructions — whether on the PGC's website or included in printed materials — that says being ineligible to possess a firearm prevents you from hunting with 1.
Details from a 2011 Pennsylvania Game Commission operation showed felons continued to hunt with firearms. Operation Talon, a dark functioning to terminate poaching, was first held during the weekends of Oct. 21, 28 and November. 5, according to the Pocono Tape. During those iii weekends, two felons were caught possessing firearms. In 2017, no felons possessing firearms were caught during Operation Talon.
Raup said it'south "a growing problem" that'southward difficult for the agency to quantify.
"I don't know that statistically we accept a good handle on that because we only come across it when nosotros come beyond it," Raup said.
The law
The process of identifying and prosecuting a convicted felon hunting with a firearm is complicated.
"There is no one-size-fits-all response that nosotros take," Raup said.
Full-time game wardens accept the legal authority to charge someone for any criminal offense, including specific wild fauna laws. Wardens can stop anyone and do a groundwork bank check, fifty-fifty if they don't see an immediate violation. However, Raup said most stops begin with some kind of violation.
Others self-identify as bedevilled felons who know they weren't supposed to be hunting. And sometimes, officers just have a "gut hunch" that something is off, according to Raup.
In Wolfe'southward example, he was defenseless hunting past a game warden who already knew he wasn't allowed to possess a gun. Raup said this happens but is somewhat infrequent.
A game warden volition put a felon under arrest for hunting with a firearm. Notwithstanding, that doesn't mean the individual will lose his or her license. Considering there'southward no groundwork check, the individual could apply and hunt again the following year if he or she hasn't committed any game and wild fauna violations.
The agency has no legal authority to do groundwork checks at the showtime of a hunting license sale, according to Raup. As a result, criminal history doesn't terminate the sale of a hunting license. Merely Game and Wild animals Code violations can upshot in license suspension or revocation.
"A lot of folks kind of wait at that and run into that as holy smokes that's kind of bizarre; yous're selling licenses to persons in large respect who tin't even possess a firearm," Raup said.
People caught hunting when their license is revoked for violating a wild fauna law face a $1,000-$1,500 fine and tin can too face upwardly to 90 days in prison house. Hunting with an illegally possessed firearm tin can lead to years in prison.
"If you get this incorrect, it's not but a citation, it'south a felony," Raup said. "Yous're arrested. You lot're put in jail. I practise think there is an of import responsibility we accept as a country to ensure we are fairly applying the law."
Response
The work game wardens exercise can be dangerous. That'southward why state Rep. Keith Gillespie, R-Hellam Township, proposed a pecker in Jan 2022 to define game wardens as "enforcement officers" – and requite them the aforementioned benefits as other officers.
Gillespie, chairman of the state House Game & Fisheries Committee, said game wardens are often by themselves in remote areas of the state. He compared felons hunting with firearms to those who continue to drive after getting a DUI – people who "don't get the message."
"I wish we could legislate good scruples, morals and ethics," Gillespie said. "Unfortunately, we tin't."
Gillespie said he liked the idea of background checks to get hunting licenses and wanted to explore it with the Game Committee.
But Raup sees potential problems with that thought. Bedevilled felons can't hunt with a firearm, merely they can legally chase or trap with air guns, archery equipment and more. Raup said denying hunting licenses to these people would too deny them admission to legal hunting activities.
"A groundwork bank check at the time of application is kind of a spooky thing," he said. "I don't know if our society wants the states doing that."
Steve Mohr doesn't desire that either. He is a 67-year-old hunter, the vice president of Unified Sportsmen of Pennsylvania and a former state game commissioner.
"We already have and then many means of checking information technology now, and people autumn through the cracks," said Mohr, who lives in Lancaster County, near the Susquehanna River. "And then why waste the time?"
Mohr thinks that a background check arrangement would brand things harder on people who don't interruption the law. They would end up having to expect longer for hunting licenses and pay more for the licenses, he said.
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Shira Goodman, who recently took a temporary exit of absenteeism as executive director of CeaseFirePA, said at that place are bigger gaps in gun laws than the hunting one. In Pennsylvania, you can buy a burglarize from a friend or neighbour without a background check. If you lose a gun or it'south stolen from you, you don't have to report that to police.
But she said the gaps add up and brand the trouble worse.
Paul Orr, an attorney who represented Wolfe, is a hunter. He thinks doing background checks on everyone seeking a hunting license might non be a good idea. But he thinks that at the very least license applications should warn people that previous convictions could get in illegal for them to possess a gun.
"It would at to the lowest degree put the person on notice," Orr said.
Raup thinks office of the problem is disruptive land firearms laws, which create a dilemma for police enforcement officers. He thinks the courtroom organisation could provide better information and teaching so people don't inadvertently commit felonies.
"I recall we could exercise meliorate," he said.
'Just a country boy'
Wolfe and his attorneys have argued that he didn't know he wasn't immune to possess a gun.
"He'south non an attorney. He's not a gauge. He's just a country male child from York who likes to hunt," Orr said at Wolfe's trial.
Meanwhile, prosecutor Susan Emmons described Wolfe — someone with multiple felony and other convictions on his tape — as the very type of person lawmakers want to continue guns away from.
His case gives a view of how these illegal gun possession cases play out.
Wolfe, 42, has been bedevilled of several crimes that get in illegal for him to possess a gun. In the 1990s, he was convicted of burglary and involuntary deviate sexual intercourse. In 2009, he was convicted on a charge of possession with intent to evangelize marijuana.
But, over the years, he had access to guns, he testified during his trial.
In 2013, Wolfe met with a game warden later the officer got a written report of Wolfe allegedly using a muzzleloading firearm to shoot a big cadet, fifty-fifty though it wasn't buck season.
That game warden, Kyle Jury, and Wolfe have described the conversation that took place between them differently.
Jury testified that when he spoke to Wolfe, Wolfe didn't have a muzzleoader with him. Wolfe wasn't charged with a criminal offense either. Merely Jury said he still warned him that he wasn't allowed to possess a gun, fifty-fifty a muzzleloader.
Wolfe said the chat was more than vague.
For the 2014-15 hunting season, Wolfe bought at least one hunting license from Walmart, he testified.
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In December 2014, Wolfe went hunting before work. It was a dreary morning, he said.
Jury was on patrol in Newberry Township a little after seven a.m. It was early during burglarize deer season. It'due south a busy time of year, and Jury was used to doing what are known as field checks. He'd make sure hunters had their licenses. He'd encounter that they wore enough fluorescent orangish.
Then Jury spotted someone hunting close to a property where an owner had previously expressed concerns about hunters beingness too close. When Jury and a fellow officer approached, Wolfe was in a tree stand up, about 15 anxiety in the air and wearing orange.
Wolfe had a firearm with him — a shotgun with a rifle butt for hunting deer, Jury testified.
When Wolfe took off his hat, Jury recognized him. Wolfe wasn't carrying a hunting license with him, which is a violation.
The wardens confirmed Wolfe wasn't allowed to possess a gun and arrested him.
Wolfe fought the illegal gun possession charge. At an April 2022 trial, he testified that he thought the ban on him possessing a gun ended when his probation did. The shotgun that game wardens institute with Wolfe is i he bought when he was about eighteen, he testified. Whenever he was on probation and non allowed to possess a gun, he would give that shotgun and any other similar guns to his mother, he testified.
His chaser argued that probation office forms were confusing. The prosecutor and York County Court of Mutual Pleas Gauge Michael Bortner didn't buy that argument.
Bortner found Wolfe guilty of illegally possessing a gun. He later defended the decision, saying, "The testify showed he had every reason to know he was not allowed to have guns."
Sentinel, case points to loophole in gun laws (story continues below):
Emmons, the prosecutor, asked for five years to x years in state prison, saying the sentencing guidelines called for that. Bortner said that amount of time was excessive and instead sentenced him to two-and-a-half to five years in land prison.
Wolfe appealed, but the Pennsylvania Superior Court agreed with Bortner. Then, in October 2017, he appealed to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
While his case was under appeal, Wolfe remained free on supervised bail.
One of the atmospheric condition of bail is that he tin't possess a gun. That might seem obvious.
Only Bortner made that extra articulate back in June 2022 at Wolfe's sentencing hearing.
"Equally difficult as information technology may exist for yous and your lifestyle, you demand to stay away from firearms," Bortner told Wolfe.
The instance was under appeal for more than a yr. Just on Feb. 21, 2018, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied Wolfe's request for an entreatment. The twenty-four hour period of the decision, Wolfe's attorney for the appeal, Eric Wintertime, said he and Wolfe would have to discuss options.
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Source: https://www.ydr.com/story/news/2018/03/11/pennsylvania-gun-laws-you-can-get-hunting-license-without-background-check/1070067001/
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