Firearms Owners, Aplts v. Comm'r of PSP
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania · No. 32 MAP 2023
🤝Mixed outcome
plaintiffs lost injunctive, mandamus, and fee relief but had their declaratory claim and amendment request revived; the court resolved which remedies are available rather than whether PSP violated the statute
GunMapUSA assessment of the outcome's direction, not a statement that the court decided rightly or wrongly.
What the court held
Firearms Owners Against Crime, a firearms dealer, and a retailer sued the Pennsylvania State Police, alleging it deliberately understaffed the unit operating the Pennsylvania Instant Check System so that background checks routinely took hours, contrary to the Uniform Firearms Act's requirement of instantaneous checks, and sought injunctive, mandamus, declaratory, and fee relief. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court affirmed the denial of a permanent injunction and mandamus, upheld the dissolution of an earlier preliminary injunction, and held there is no basis to refund or enjoin the $2 per-check fee charged to dealers. It reversed the denial of declaratory relief, vacated the order refusing leave to amend, and remanded for further proceedings.
Summarized from the court's opinion.
Key Dates
- 2025-05-30 — Decided
Sources
- CourtListener — retrieved 2026-08-08
Summary of public court records. Not legal advice.