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When city officials pulled the trigger in 2012 by posting details on gun-permit appeals online, they considered it a public service. Now the data have become a $1.4 million public expense.

The Nutter administration said Tuesday it had settled a class-action lawsuit with 3,265 Philadelphians who were denied a license to carry firearms by the Police Department or had a permit revoked and then appealed to the Department of Licenses and Inspections, which posted the information online.

The postings - on a new interactive website - came as a result of L&I's effort to be more transparent following an executive order on open data signed by Mayor Nutter in April 2012. The department posted several data sets, including gun permit appeals that contained applicants' names, addresses, and appeal information.

The applicants had to describe in the appeal documents why they needed a firearm. Some people stated that they have to carry a lot of cash at night, said Benjamin Picker, one of the lawyers who filed the suit, and making that information public exposed applicants to peril.

City officials "simply didn't do their homework before releasing the data," Picker said. "It was a road map for criminals."

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The website was taken down after three days.

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The settlement, reached last month, must still be approved by Common Pleas Court Judge Jacqueline Allen. The city admitted no fault.

The settlement calls for applicants whose personal information was made public to be compensated with cash. The 2,188 people whose information was part of the live database will receive about $440 each. The 1,077 people who are part of a separate class in the lawsuit - those whose information was kept in a city database accessible to city employees and contractors, but not posted online for the general public - will receive $25 each.

The confidentiality provision of the state gun law, the plaintiffs' lawyers said, states that any person or government agency that violates the confidentiality subsection must pay $1,000 in damages per occurrence or "three times the actual damages incurred as a result of the violation, whichever is greater."

The $440 and $25 the defendants will get in this case was a compromise, attorneys on both sides said.

The settlement also includes various policy changes, including faster processing of applications for a license and permit confidentiality training for the Police Department.

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AB 1014, authored by Assemblymembers Das Williams and Nancy Skinner, would create ‘gun violence restraining orders’ that would allow police to proactively confiscate firearms and hold them for one year with no due process merely based on an accusation made by an immediate family member, a law enforcement officer or a health professional.

“This bill would allow a search warrant to be issued when the property or things to be seized are a firearm or firearms or ammunition that is in the custody or control of, or is owned or possessed by, a person who is the subject of a gun violence restraining order and who is presently known to have in his or her custody and control or possession, or to own a firearm or firearms or ammunition,” states the bill.

The accusation against the individual has to meet the standard of evidence, “to believe that the subject of the petition poses a significant risk of personal injury to himself, herself, or another by having under his or her custody and control, owning, purchasing, possessing, or receiving a firearm,” states the bill, although the nature of this evidence is not properly defined.

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Even David Warren, of Taxpayers for Improving Public Safety (a group that normally supports gun control legislation), spoke out against the bill, stating that it had “significant constitutional deficiencies” and would not be enforceable.

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DARBY, PA (RNN) - A psychiatric patient opened fire in a Pennsylvania hospital wellness center, killing one female hospital employee and injuring a doctor.

The alleged gunman arrived at Mercy Wellness Center with his case worker.

Police say a hospital worker witnessed him pointing a gun at the doctor and immediately called 911. Shortly thereafter, gunshots were heard.

The Associated Press reports the doctor, who was grazed by a bullet, stopped the gunman by returning fire. The gunman is in critical condition.

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