Pennsylvania's most common gun charges
Most Pennsylvania firearms prosecutions arise under a handful of sections of the Uniform Firearms Act. Section 6106 — carrying a firearm concealed or in a vehicle without a license to carry — is a third-degree felony, but drops to a first-degree misdemeanor when the person was otherwise eligible for a license and committed no other violation. That single grading distinction is one of the most important negotiating levers in any carry case.
Section 6105 — possession by a prohibited person — is the most serious charge in the chapter: a second-degree felony for most disqualifying convictions, and a first-degree felony, with up to twenty years of exposure, when the person was physically holding or controlling the firearm or has a prior Section 6105 conviction. Section 6108 separately makes carrying on Philadelphia's public streets without a license a first-degree misdemeanor. Possessing a firearm with an altered or obliterated serial number is a second-degree felony, and straw purchases — buying or transferring a gun for someone who cannot pass a background check — are felonies with a five-year mandatory minimum on a second violation.
Who is prohibited from possessing a firearm
Section 6105 prohibits possession by people convicted of roughly forty enumerated offenses — aggravated assault, robbery, burglary, and drug felonies among them — and by several other categories: fugitives, subjects of active final Protection From Abuse orders, people involuntarily committed for mental health treatment under Sections 302, 303, or 304, certain juvenile adjudications, and those with three DUI convictions in five years (for purchases). Federal law layers its own prohibitions on top under 18 U.S.C. 922(g), and the two lists do not match perfectly — a trap that catches people who believe, in good faith, that they are allowed to possess a firearm.
Where gun cases are won: the stop and the search
In most firearms prosecutions, the gun is the whole case — which makes the legality of how police found it the whole defense. Pennsylvania's constitution is more protective than federal law here. Under Commonwealth v. Alexander (2020), police need both probable cause and exigent circumstances to search a vehicle without a warrant — Pennsylvania rejected the federal automobile exception. Under Commonwealth v. Hicks (2019), the mere fact that someone is carrying a firearm does not create reasonable suspicion for a stop, because carrying may be perfectly legal.
When the firearm was not found on the person — in a shared car, a shared home — the Commonwealth must prove constructive possession: the power and the intent to control the gun. Mere presence near a firearm is not enough, and multi-occupant vehicle cases are among the most defensible gun cases in Pennsylvania. Every case here gets the same review: the stop, the frisk, the search, the statements, and the possession theory, each tested against what the law actually requires.
