Judiciary panel advances bill requiring quarterly firearms simulation training for municipal police
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Summary
The House Judiciary Committee voted to report House Bill 1604 as amended after debate over scope and implementation. The amendment would expand a quarterly firearms and simulation training requirement to municipal police across the commonwealth and require the commission to make simulation training available at least twice per year.
House Bill 1604, introduced by Representative Delosa, was reported out of the House Judiciary Committee on a party-line vote after the panel adopted an amendment to expand the training requirement statewide for municipal police.
The bill as described by committee counsel would “amend Title 53 to require quarterly firearms training for law enforcement officers in a county of the second class A with a population between 565,600” and place officers who fail to complete the training on administrative leave until training is completed. Committee counsel also described Amendment 01901, offered by Chairman Briggs, which “will apply the quarterly training requirement to all municipal police agencies and also require the commission to make simulation training available at least two times per year.”
Representative Paul Delosa, the bill sponsor, said the measure was born from “a horrible day in my community” and cited a police-involved shooting in Sharon Hill that left community members and officers wounded. “We have proposed what we think, and hopefully as amended, is a fine piece of kit…for training our police,” Delosa said. He told the committee he had support from the local Fraternal Order of Police lodge and the Delaware County district attorney for additional simulation training.
Representative Rigby questioned whether increasing mandated training by statute was the right approach and whether the change should instead be handled by departmental policy. Committee counsel responded that the amendment would apply statewide (excluding the State Police) and that MoPEC would run the training. Rigby said, “I’m all for trainings…but questioning whether this needs to be legislative or if this maybe needs to be policy within the departments.”
After debate, the committee adopted the Briggs amendment and voted to report House Bill 1604 as amended. The chair announced that Democrats would vote yes and Republicans would vote no; the clerk recorded the bill as passing and to be reported as amended.
The bill takes effect immediately under the counsel’s summary; the committee recorded no further implementation detail at the hearing such as precise curriculum, funding, or timeline for ramp-up beyond the amendment’s twice-yearly simulation requirement.
Committee members who spoke on the record included Representative Delosa, Representative Rigby, Chairman Briggs and committee counsel. The committee’s motion to report the bill as amended was recorded as approved.
The committee did not provide a written implementation plan at the hearing; members asked staff to pursue follow-up details on how MoPEC would deliver the additional in-person and simulation sessions and how administrative-leave provisions would be executed by municipal employers.
