The state House of Representatives are mulling four bills this legislative session to adopt additional gun control measures.

The measures are fortunately not as invasive or as hostile to the Second Amendment as many gun control advocates would like. Our Republican majority in the state Senate has earned a strong record on the Second Amendment that discouraged pursuit of the most excessive of proposals. We believe we all should be thankful for that.

We are open-minded about a proposal to toughen laws regarding failure to report stolen or missing guns — we frequently, throughout Pennsylvania, see stolen and missing guns as a critical component of crimes involving firearms. We believe that with certain rights come certain responsibilities and we doubt our law-abiding community members who own firearms are interested in legally protecting carelessness with those firearms.

We, as we have editorialized before, remain skeptical that the final version of a so-called “red flag” law, which allows courts to temporarily strip firearms ownership for men and women, will be respectful enough of due process. The debate over these proposals remains illustrative that erosion of the Second Amendment often is in lockstep with erosion of other bedrock freedoms our Bill of Rights is meant to guarantee.

We believe better equipping police and prosecutors to investigate and prosecute violations of long-existing laws and better funding and staffing probation and parole offices to prevent or prosecute recidivism would be more effective approaches than new laws impeding the rights of law-abiding gun owners.

And speaking more broadly, we hope our state Legislature can focus its efforts to reduce crime on criminals rather than a philosophy that Pennsylvanians who follow our laws should be treated as scapegoats.