Gov. Tom Wolf adds to mounting veto tally, kills permitless-gun bill

Gov. Tom Wolf followed through on his veto threat Thursday, rejecting Republican-penned legislation to allow people to carry a firearm openly or concealed, without a permit, adding to his total for Pennsylvania’s chief executive with the most vetoes in more than four decades.

Wolf, a Democrat, called the bill “dangerous.” Wolf’s veto comes amid a tide of deadly gun violence in Philadelphia, the state’s largest city, and political finger-pointing over blame.

Wolf has said it is a top priority to address what he says is a gun violence crisis affecting largely minority communities, but the Republican-controlled Legislature has largely rejected his proposals since he took office in 2015.

The bill he vetoed Thursday would have removed the requirement that gun owners get a permit to carry a gun that is concealed, such as under clothing or in their vehicle’s glove box. It also would have wiped out a law, applying only to Philadelphia, that requires gun owners to get a permit to openly carry a firearm in the city.

Pennsylvanians otherwise are generally allowed to openly carry loaded firearms, although the law is silent on it.

According to online state records, Wolf has penned his 52nd veto with 13 months left in his second term, more than any other governor since Milton Shapp, who left office in 1979. Wolf has passed Democrat Robert P. Casey, who compiled 50 vetoes.

The Legislature has never overridden a Wolf veto, with Democrats protecting Wolf and preventing Republicans from gathering the necessary two-thirds majorities in both chambers.

Republicans blame Wolf’s mounting stack of vetoes for what they say is failing to engage with lawmakers, compromise or negotiate.

Friction over the governor’s broad use of executive authority to respond to the pandemic has played a role, with Wolf taking a veto pen to about a dozen covid-19-related bills passed by lawmakers.

“This governor hasn’t figured out how to work with the Legislature,” Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman, R-Centre, said last month.

The result, Corman and others say, has been for the sides to seek alternatives to lawmaking.

The governor has often taken action through executive order or drafting regulations, and lawmakers taking action through drafting proposals to amend the state constitution. Those can’t be vetoed by Wolf.

Republican lawmakers now are trying, through proposals to amend the constitution, to give them more control over a governor’s powers to make permanent policy through regulation or executive order.

One would strip the authority of a governor to veto a resolution passed by lawmakers to block a proposed regulation. Currently, the governor can veto such a resolution.

The other would limit the effect of an executive order to 21 days, unless lawmakers agree to extend it.