HARRISBURG (TNS) — A Republican-fueled majority in the Pennsylvania House has given final approval to a bill that would end the state’s longstanding provision requiring a separate license for all civilian handgun owners to carry a concealed weapon on their person or in a car.

In a vote mostly carried by the House’s Republican majority, the bill passed 107-92 after several hours of debate. Supporters included 103 Republicans and four Democrats; 84 Democrats and eight Republicans voted no.

Sen. Cris Dush, R-Brookville, sponsored the bill that passed the state Senate earlier this month.

But the win will be short-lived.

Gov. Tom Wolf has said he will veto the bill as soon as it hits his desk, and the majorities in both the state House and Senate (29-21, last week) are well below the two-thirds majorities needed to override a veto.

Gridlock has seized the gun debate at the State Capitol since 2018. That fall, domestic violence advocates successfully pushed through a bill requiring abusers to surrender guns upon imposition of a contested protection from abuse order.

But on all other fronts, the Republican majorities have blocked gun control advocates from getting their measures to the floor for debates. Wolf, meanwhile has blocked most efforts to bolster gun owners’ rights.

The Pennsylvania proposal mirrored a bill that was signed into law in Texas last spring, when that state became the 21st in the nation to adopt the so-called “constitutional carry” language. Supporters use the term constitutional carry because they argue that it’s just as much a fundamental right to bear arms as it is to own them.

But in some ways, the change to the Pennsylvania law is a smaller step.

Unlike in some states, where a permit to carry comes with requirements for training, a written exam and a shooting proficiency test, all Pennsylvanians need to get the permit is to have a clean background check, two character references and $20 for the application fee.

Still, supporters here called even those steps unnecessary hoops for law-abiding citizens, who in most cases already have to pass a background check when they purchase a gun. Nothing about Pennsylvania’s background check regimen would change under this proposal.

Dush has argued that Pennsylvania’s concealed-carry permit requirement violates the constitutional right to bear arms. He also believes carrying a gun in the open compromises the ability to act if another person attempts a crime with a gun.

“You make yourself a target if you have to carry open,” Dush said in Senate debate last week, as reported by The Morning Call of Allentown. “You lose the ability to defend yourself and others.”

That argument carried little weight with gun control advocates in the House, who expressed concern about relaxing any gun regulations at a time when gun homicides in some of the state’s urban areas is on the increase.

As of Monday, the Philadelphia Police Department has recorded 483 homicides in Pennsylvania’s largest city, a rate that is running 11% above 2020 levels, when the homicide count in the city ticked above 400 for the first time since at least 2007. The vast majority of those homicides are committed with guns.

“Those of us in besieged communities need help, and I’m curious how this is going to help us?” asked Rep. Christopher Rabb, D-Philadelphia. “If this were to become law, how many Kyle Rittenhouses are going to be walking around?” Rabb continued, referring to the armed teen awaiting a jury’s verdict for shooting three protestors who confronted him in Kenosha, Wis., last year. Two of the men were killed and the third was wounded in an arm.

Rittenhouse has claimed that he acted in self-defense after going to Kenosha to protect business properties from rioters.

The “constitutional carry” push is a counter-offensive by gun rights supporters that gained momentum here, said Kim Stolfer, president of the state chapter of Firearms Owners Against Crimes, because of the growing number of cities and towns that have tried to adopt new local gun ordinances when gun regulation is supposed to be handled strictly by the state.

Stolfer said his group had also fielded growing complaints from gun owners this year about discrepancies in administration of the concealed carry permit application process around the state.

“It’s a reaction to government failing to follow the law,” Stolfer said.

The concealed carry bill had strong opposition from a number of pro law enforcement groups, including the Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association and the Pennsylvania Chiefs of Police Association, though unions representing rank-and-file police officers — including the state Fraternal Order of police and the Pennsylvania State Troopers Association — were officially neutral.

Opponents of the bill said they see nothing particularly burdensome about the permit requirement, noting that about 1.3 million state residents have the permits now. But the permit applications, they said, do give a needed check-up for the public on people who, by definition, mean to possess guns in the wider world.

Some said there are easier and safer ways to make the existing permit requirement less-onerous for handgun owners, like requiring the state to notify permit holders that it’s time to renew their five-year permits, just like the state Department of Transportation does now for vehicle registrations and driver’s license renewals.

Rep. Mike Zabel, D-Delaware County, said he gets that different people have different perspectives on how strictly guns should be regulated.

But what he can’t understand about this bill, he said Tuesday, is that at a time when “mass shootings have become regular occurrences and gun violence has escalated, that somehow, some way, what Pennsylvania needs right now is to remove the requirement for a license to carry a firearm. That principle just doesn’t make any sense to me.”

Permits to carry a concealed weapon have been on the books in some way, shape or form in Pennsylvania since the 1930s, and the current requirement has been in place since 1988.