The Philadelphia Inquirer, who’s editorial staff know nothing about guns aside from what Bryan Miller tells them, and who don’t seem interested in learning, think it’s high time Pennsylvania jumped on board the gun rationing bandwagon:
As soon as next month, the state Senate could vote on a measure approved by the state Assembly that would impose a one-handgun-per-month limit. At the same time, the Assembly’s calendar contains another smart gun-safety measure that would ban .50-caliber sniper rifles capable of targeting a plane.
It is ridiculous to believe that criminals in New Jersey are submitting themselves to extreme scrutiny by the police to get purchase permits in order to feloniously sell their purchase to criminals. It’s even more ridiculous to think that someone with a 24lb rifle could successfully shoot down a plane. The Inky should send one of their reporters to a range to shoot, and it could be shown that even some .22 caliber rounds easily penetrate aircraft aluminum. All a .50 does is make a bigger hole. That’s it. The serious anti-material and armor piercing rounds are not available to civilians.
That effort deserves the full support of lawmakers from South Jersey, including Senate Majority Leader Stephen Sweeney (D., Gloucester). But Sweeney is not yet on board with the proposal, and seems to be quoting from the NRA’s bullet points about the need to enforce existing gun regulations more fully.
My hat is off to you Stephen Sweeney, for realizing what the real solution is to criminal gun use. Everyone should contact Senator Sweeney here, and thank him for not supporting this nonsense.
In stark contrast to New Jersey, the rules for handgun purchases in the Keystone State are shockingly lax. As such, handgun trafficking is more widespread, since it’s so much easier for straw buyers to acquire weapons. That’s why many of Philadelphia’s toughest neighborhood streets are awash in illegal handguns.
Except it’s a felony to illegally transfer a handgun in Pennsylvania without going through an FFL and passing a background check. Anyone who seriously checks into Pennsylvania’s gun laws cannot conclude they are lax. The Inquirer editorial staff want you to take their word on that. To them, apparently lax is being able to go to a gun shop and buy a gun.
For a state that has such widespread gun trafficking, and such lax gun laws, we seem to have a violent crime rate that’s awfully close to New Jersey’s. New Jersey’s violent crime rate is actually remarkably high for a state that has no major cities.
I disagree with enforcing the existing laws more fully. They should be repealed, because almost every one of them is a direct infringement of the 2A. There is no common sense about any of them.
I don’t agree in regards to laws prohibiting violent felons from having firearms. You can strip people of liberty through due process of law, and historically, felons were dealt with by knotted rope and a short fall rather than prison. Prohibiting them from possessing arms is pretty tame in comparison to hanging.
Either way, that’s not to say I support the current laws prohibiting felons in their entirety, but I think it’s constitutional to deprive criminals of rights through due process.
That said, I’m not really supporting enforcing the existing gun laws here so much as advocating locking up people who misuse firearms for criminal purposes. The gun has nothing to do with it really, it’s more the criminal purpose.
Almost EVERY gun law is aimed at destroying a culture of outdoor loving sportsmen and women. Period. They have nothing to do with public safety or crime.
“The Inky should send one of their reporters to a range to shoot, and it could be shown that even some .22 caliber rounds easily penetrate aircraft aluminum.”
I’m calling “Bad Idea” on you here, Sebastian. Next thing they’ll be seeking to ban my 10/22 “rapid-fire-anti-aircraft artillery”! :)
Let’s give them a little credit: at least they’re not claiming folks are running around Philadelphia with Barretts and AR-50s, terrorizing the rich folk. On the other hand, minus an awful lot of points for implying that folks are trying to shoot down airplanes with rifles.
Besides, since when is New Jersey anyone’s role model?
Wow, if we were to believe these gun grabber types, all that would have been needed to repel the Japanese aerial attack at Pearl Harbor in 1941 would have been a whole bunch of .50 caliber “sniper” rifles, since they’re “capable of targeting a plane” so well, that is.
These politicians in New Jersey are nothing but a bunch of disingenuous dopes. I’d love to round them all up and strap them down in order to force them to watch an hour or two of film footage from WWII, to show just how many hundreds of rounds of .50 caliber ammunition, being fired from mounted and belt-fed M2 Browning machine guns mind you, that it took to shoot down fighter planes back then. This was also back when most aircraft were propeller-driven and had a lower airspeed, too, unlike the jet aircraft of today.
Then I’d tell them to go out and find any evidence of any aircraft being shot down by “.50-caliber sniper rifles” anywhere in the world. They would have to fabricate said evidence of course, because such a thing has never actually happened.
Robert:
Most of them have that effect, and I have no doubt that a lot of gun control folks do wish to end that culture. But we will probably have to live with some gun control, even if we are outstandingly successful at getting a lot of the current laws removed or changed. I suspect the prohibitions on felons having guns is probably here to stay. I doubt they actually work all that well, but they are among the laws the Supreme Court said were “presumptively constitutional”
If they’re VIOLENT felons why are they out on the streets? Also, using that logic leads down that path we’re supposed to be fighting against.
If they’re violent felons do you think a law is going to stop them from getting a gun or any other dangerous weapon?
“I suspect the prohibitions on felons having guns is probably here to stay. I doubt they actually work all that well, but they are among the laws the Supreme Court said were “presumptively constitutional—
OK then, we need to infiltrate newspapers and start calling the sentence what they are. Life. You have lost all chance at basic human rights forever. If they can’t be trusted to defend their own life strip them of the right to elect scum who seek to restrict my rights, taxes, and everything else that can be done by vote. Wire their jaws shut so they cannot speak, quarter troops in their homes.
I think we’re a lot closer to agreement than we thought, Sebastian. I can live with violent felons being denied, which necessitates background checks. I’m just saying that almost all the other gun control laws afflict the law-abiding without doing any good. Those laws should not be enforced, but repealed. But the NRA is throwing the gun-grabbers a bone by saying “no more laws; enforcethe oneswe have better.”
Would it be right to deprive felons of their other constitutional rights? Limits on what they can say or write? No due process or trial by jury? Should we be allowed to quarter troops in their homes? No protection from unreasonable search and seizure, double jeopardy or self-incrimination?
The 2nd amendment is just as important as any of the others and all rights should be restored when confinement ends.
When determing sentence length and/or parole one of the most important factors to consider should be — “When will this person be rehabiliated enough to have their rights, including RKBA, restored to them.”
Think about that you’ll soon realize that crime would be greatly reduced. Liberals would be on the side of longer sentences if they had to face the fact that RKBA would be restored after confinement.
Hank and Tom:
I don’t really disagree with you. I would not object to repeal of the laws prohibiting felons from possessing guns because I don’t believe they accomplish anything. But I doubt even 20% of Americans agree with that. I’m open to changing their minds, but I’ll burn that bridge when I come to it.
Would it be right to deprive felons of their other constitutional rights? Limits on what they can say or write? No due process or trial by jury? Should we be allowed to quarter troops in their homes? No protection from unreasonable search and seizure, double jeopardy or self-incrimination?
The courts are mixed on it. But under conditions of parole, we allow a lot of these restrictions on liberties, actually. Would it be right to allow a sort of life time parole for certain offenders? Ideally, we would keep them in prison, but given the cost of that, I don’t think society is willing to pay for it. You’re going to have some form of violent people walking the streets.
But the NRA is throwing the gun-grabbers a bone by saying “no more laws; enforce the ones we have better
I think it’s not so much a bone, because they aren’t really interested in gun laws to enforce them against criminals. They are interested in getting more laws that they can enforce against us, on a large scale. Most of the federal gun laws, and state gun laws, are actually, at least in theory, centered around keeping criminals from getting guns. The last thing the gun control folks want is for those laws to reduce crime. That might undermine their ultimate goal.