Jonvic’s home gun checks
Requiring citizens to lock up their firearms is one thing; giving the police a standing invitation to walk in and check the locks is another.
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Requiring citizens to lock up their firearms is one thing; giving the police a standing invitation to walk in and check the locks is another.
Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla’s proposal to have the Philippine National Police (PNP) visit the homes of licensed gun owners to check whether their firearms are securely stored sounds reasonable enough.
After all, the law requires gun owners to keep their firearms locked in a safe or container secured by lock and key or other security measures. If the government wrote the rule, why shouldn’t it get to check whether citizens are following it?
Well, there is that pesky little document called the Constitution.
Republic Act (RA) 10591, the Comprehensive Firearms and Ammunition Regulation Act, was enacted in 2013 and amended by RA 11766 in 2022.
It sorts owners into five license types by firearm count: Type 1 allows up to two registered firearms; Type 2, up to five; Type 3, up to 10; Type 4, up to 15; and Type 5, more than 15 for a certified gun collector. Inspection and bond requirements attach to Types 3 to 5 — so the law already contemplated checking how people stored their larger arsenals.
Then the Supreme Court spoiled the party.
In the 2019 case between the PNP and the Philippine Gun Owners Association, or PROGUN, the Court struck down the implementing rules requiring license applicants to consent to home inspections.
Citizens, it ruled, cannot be made to surrender their Article III, Section 2 protection against unreasonable searches and seizures — no warrant, no entry, save for recognized exceptions like valid consent — as the price of being given a gun license.
The issue was never whether the PNP could find the right wording for its implementing rules. It was, and remains, whether government can constitutionally enter and search a private home at all.
So if Remulla wants Congress to further amend RA 10591 to expressly authorize residential inspections, the lawmakers should be careful about what they are being asked to accomplish.
Congress can amend an ordinary law. It cannot amend the Constitution by passing another law, and no implementing rule or administrative tweak can do it either. Calling the intrusion a “safety inspection” does not make the Bill of Rights evaporate.
We have every reason to want firearms out of the wrong hands, and punishing owners who ignore the law. Still, requiring citizens to lock up their firearms is one thing; giving the police a standing invitation to walk in and check the locks is another.
And then there is the rather awkward matter of how this proposal arose in the first place.
Remulla’s call came amid the outrage over the school shootings in Tacloban and Zamboanga, involving, by most reports, firearms issued to police officers.
So, if government-issued guns are turning up in school shootings, the first place to look is not in the gun safes of ordinary citizens but the government’s own system for issuing, tracking, and securing its weapons.
Gun safety is a legitimate concern, and secure storage a valid requirement. Just the same, constitutional rights are not annoying technicalities to be swept aside when the government has a good reason to search your home.
The Supreme Court and the Constitution have already drawn the line. Congress cannot simply legislate it away.
