PHILADELPHIA PA – State Senator Vincent Hughes (D-Phila) and Congressman Chaka Fattah (D-PA) announced Friday the launch of the Illegal Guns Hotline that will offer a $1,000 reward for any citizen whose information leads to police seizure of illegal guns and arrest of the weapons’ possessor. 

The Hotline will be operated by the Citizens Crime Commission of Delaware Valley. Vice President Santo Montecalvo described how CCC’s 215-546-TIPS line (215-546-8477) will expand to include illegal guns as it trades cash for anonymous tips of criminal activity. He said operators are standing by “24/7” to take information from anonymous tipsters that will be relayed to the police under its existing procedures.

The Illegal Guns Hotline will pay $1,000 within 72 hours for information that leads to seizure of an illegal gun or guns and the arrest of the possessor(s) of illegal firearms seized. The Hotline for illegal weapons will have a $100,000 reward pool drawn from private donations by business and labor groups.

Rep. Fattah said Philadelphians support a Gun Safe Philadelphia and are ready to step up and help wipe guns off the streets. “We know this is going to work,” he said. “If rewards didn’t work they (at the CCC) would be out of business. We are trying to get in front of the homicides, in front of the body bags.”

Hughes called the program “the Congressman’s brainchild.” Fattah thanked Senator Hughes and his staff for putting together the program with the CCC.

“Illegal guns and the violence committed by those who possess them are at the center of the criminal activity on our city streets. Removal of illegal guns is the point at which citizens, policy makers and law enforcement officials must join this fight today,” Rep. Fattah said. He is a member of the new Congressional Task Force on Illegal Guns.

Senator Hughes and Rep. Fattah both criticized the Pennsylvania legislature for failing to grant Philadelphia the authority to write its own gun control laws.

“We must use whatever tactic is available to us to get illegal guns off the streets,” Senator Hughes said. “The State of Pennsylvania is not giving us the legislative relief we need.”