Protection From Abuse (PFA) Orders in Pennsylvania

To Whom It May Concern:

Pursuant to the Pennsylvania Right to Know Act, I hereby request the following records:

Records containing data on Protection From Abuse (PFA) Orders in Pennsylvania, including the information included below, from January 1, 2019 to December 31, 2023, broken down by year and county, ideally at an individual case level.

1. The total number of Protection From Abuse (PFA) order petitions filed
2. The total number of PFAs granted, broken down by temporary and final orders
3. The total number of PFAs denied, broken down by temporary and final orders
4. The total number of PFAs that prohibit respondents from possessing firearms, broken down by temporary and final orders
5. The total number of PFAs that require relinquishment of firearms, broken down by temporary and final orders
6. The total number of PFAs where firearms were successfully relinquished to a law enforcement agency
7. The total number of PFAs where firearms were successfully relinquished to a licensed firearm dealer (FFL)
8. The total number of PFAs where firearms were successfully relinquished to a commercial armory
9. The total number of PFAs where firearms were successfully relinquished to an attorney at law who was in an attorney-client relationship with the respondent
10. The total number of PFAs where no firearms were relinquished due to the respondent stating they don’t have any
11. The total number of PFAs where firearms were ordered to be relinquished but were not relinquished
12. The total number of firearms relinquished to law enforcement
13. The total number of firearms relinquished to FFLs
14. The total number of firearms relinquished to commercial armories
15. The total number of firearms relinquished to attorneys at law
16. The total number of firearms returned after the expiration of the order
17. The total number of firearms that were not returned after the expiration of the order because the respondent was prohibited from firearm possession

I greatly appreciate any help you can provide.

At a minimum, I am looking for the number of orders granted and how many required relinquishment of firearms, irrespective of whether you have or are able to share any of the other requested information.

If there is any information listed above that you do collect and can share, I will take whatever you are able to provide.

The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes.

In the event that there are fees, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.

Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 5 business days, as the statute requires.

Sincerely,

Mackey O'Keefe

Thank you so much for this response!
Could you please re-send this information broken down by calendar year and county? Could it be in an excel spreadsheet or csv file type?
Thank you so much,
Mackey

Megan, thank you so so much for this! This is doc is incredibly helpful.
My colleagues have a question about how to interpret the data in the sheet. Is there any chance they could give you a quick call some time?
If so, would 877-785-7771 be the correct number?
Please let me know if they can call you and when would work best for you.
Thank you again so much,
Mackey

Hi Megan,
Thank you for this more detailed sheet!
Just to be clear, the "PFA & FIREARM TOTALS" sheet is for the dates January 1, 2019 to December 31, 2023, correct?

Additionally, I wonder if you would be able to send this information broken down by year and county, ideally at an individual case level, as I asked in the original request?

Also, would it be possible for my college and I to call you just for 10 minutes to make sure we are interpreting that original excel sheet correctly? I would so appreciate it.

Best,
Mackey

Hi Megan,
Thank you again so much for all this important data!

My colleagues and I noticed a new discrepancies in the data that I wonder if you could explain. If it's easier to do on a call with you, or with someone else in your office, we'd appreciate that as well.

- Tab number 4 doesn't seem to correspond to the summary sheet's #4. The breakdown sheet's tab 4 has grant status as DENIED as opposed to GRANTED and the total is 2962 compared to 198,712.
- For number 2 and 4, why are the orders granted numbers so incredibly high compared to number of petitions filed in #1? Are the orders numbers cumulative in nature meaning each year's data includes all previous years too? Can you please explain how these relate to number of petitions filed?
- Tab 15 is missing from the breakdown sheet
- For a few of the tabs, the totals in the breakdown sheet tabs is much higher than what is listed on the summary page- Tabs 5, 11, 14 & 16
- For a few of the tabs, the totals in the summary sheet is higher by a little (ranging from a few hundred to a handful) but there's no explanation for that.- Tabs 1, 2, 6, 10, 12, & 13

Thank you again for continuing to help with this. We truly appreciate your attention.
All best,
Mackey