{"id":216720,"date":"2026-06-11T19:20:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T19:20:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/216720\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T19:20:07","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T19:20:07","slug":"justice-department-investigates-philadelphia-gun-permit-denials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/216720\/","title":{"rendered":"Justice Department investigates Philadelphia gun permit denials"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to cover? Let us know!<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

The U.S. Department of Justice announced this week that they are investigating the city of Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Police Department for canceling gun permits for what the DOJ calls \u201cvague\u201d reasons.\n<\/p>\n

Currently, Pennsylvania state law allows local law enforcement agencies to issue, deny or cancel gun permits partly based on the \u201ccharacter and reputation\u201d of the applicant.\n<\/p>\n

In a letter to Mayor Cherelle Parker<\/a>, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department\u2019s Civil Rights Division said they would look to determine whether the city is violating residents\u2019 constitutional rights under the Second Amendment.\n <\/p>\n

\u201cLaw-abiding Americans, regardless of where they live, should not have to worry that their city will revoke their means of self-defense,\u201d he said in a statement.\n<\/p>\n

Local proponents of gun ownership rights are applauding the decision.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cFor many years, the Department of Justice was focused on vindicating many of the other rights that are embedded in the Bill of Rights and it is nice to see them finally paying attention to this very important right that matters a lot to a lot of Americans,\u201d Jonathan Goldstein, who serves on the board of the National Rifle Association and is a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania law school said.\n<\/p>\n

However, Adam Garber, CEO of CeaseFirePA, said he believes the federal government is using the investigation in an effort to remove all restrictions on gun ownership.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Department of Justice should be focusing on keeping communities safe, not going after law enforcement for taking actions to ensure that more violence doesn\u2019t happen here in Philadelphia,\u201d he said. \u201cI think that they are looking for any excuse to weaken our most basic public safety protections.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

The Second Amendment<\/p>\n

The Second Amendment to the U.S. The Constitution, ratified in 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights, was written to protect \u201cthe right of the people to keep and bear Arms\u201d when Americans viewed an armed citizenry as an important safeguard against tyranny.\n<\/p>\n

However, since then, the amendment\u2019s meaning and scope have been the subject of significant legal and political debate. Supporters of expansive gun rights argue that it protects an individual\u2019s right to own and carry firearms, while others contend that the amendment\u2019s reference to a \u201cwell regulated Militia\u201d gives the government broader authority to regulate firearms in the interest of public safety.\n<\/p>\n

The U.S. Supreme Court appeared to rule in favor of the individual\u2019s rights in its 2008 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller. In that case, a D.C. police officer sued the city after he was denied a license to keep a handgun at his home. In a 5-4 majority opinion<\/a>, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that \u201cNowhere else in the Constitution does a \u2018right\u2019 attributed to \u2018the people\u2019 refer to anything other than an individual right.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

However, the decision left the door open to some restrictions.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cLike most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited,\u201d Scalia wrote. It is \u201cnot a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

In 2022, the Supreme Court struck down a New York law<\/a> that required people to demonstrate a special need for self-defense before receiving a license to carry a handgun in public. The 6-3 ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen held that the Second Amendment protects an individual\u2019s right to carry a firearm outside the home for self-defense and directed courts to evaluate gun regulations based on the nation\u2019s historical tradition of firearm regulation\n<\/p>\n

The DOJ referenced those cases<\/a> in its announcement of the investigation.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":216721,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[12472,3404,69,71,70,724],"class_list":["post-216720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-gun-control","tag-permit","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-trump-impact"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}