Not only did their legislature pass a bill that allowed police department to surplus old firearms to civilians, they overrode O’Malley’s veto.
UPDATE: Sebastian has more analysis.
Year: 2007
Elections Matter
It’s always been a mystery to me why Pennsylvanians, who normally have no love of the City of Philadelphia, would elect its Mayor as their governor. Rendell made inroads among suburban voters because he has a reputation for turning the city around. That reputation is largely undeserved. Philadelphia rode the same economic boom everyone else in the 90s did, but was greatly outpaced by other cities. Ed Rendell never really fixed any of the cities problems, and to some degree, dumped a lot of those problems on John Street, who was unable to deal with them any reasonably effective manner.
It’s even more of a mystery why gun owners in this state didn’t work harder to defeat him. There are very few politicians more anti-gun than Ed Rendell. He is one of the true believers in gun control. He was smart enough as a politician not to push his gun control agenda very hard during his campaign, and during his first term. Gun owners got complacent, and he was elected to a second lame duck term. Now that he no longer has to face the voters, there will be no arm Ed Rendell won’t twist to get his way, and everyone in Pennsylvania knows Rendell is a pit bull when it comes to fighting for his agenda.
We have to stop this tide now. We all know there will always be Just One More Law, because none of what’s being proposed will fix Philadelphia’s crime problem. I do hope everyone makes at least a few phone calls before this vote on the 20th. If this does make it out of the assembly, we stand a good chance of being able to stop it in the senate. Remind your state representatives that you oppose this. Ed Rendell may be a lame duck, but if we punish his party for this behavior in the next election, the next anti-gun governor will have a much harder time twisting arms. Elections matter, and now it is time to pay the piper for handing Rendell a second term.
It’s Game Time Pennsylvania!
Rendell managed to get a judiciary committee vote on his gun control measures:
At the request of Governor Ed Rendell (D), the Pennsylvania House Judiciary Committee has tentatively scheduled a meeting for Tuesday, November 20 at 10:00am, to vote on several anti-gun measures. The package of bills include one-gun-a-month, a requirement for individuals to report lost or stolen firearms, and legislation that would overturn Pennsylvania’s current preemption law.
The bills are:
- HB 18, which basically destroys our state’s preemption law
- HB 22, which limits gun purchases to one gun per month
- HB 29, which requires the reporting of a lost or stolen firearm to police under severe legal penalties. This bill has the potential to trap unaware gun owners who are victimized by crimes.
It’s critical to write your state representatives and members of the Judiciary committee and tell them to vote no on these bills. Follow the link to the NRA alert to get contact info for the state representatives.
Blogger Bash in Louisville
There will be a Second Amendment Blogger Bash in Louisville, KY in conjunction with the 2008 NRA Annual Meeting May 16-18, 2008. Don’t let the title fool you; it’s not an event just for gun bloggers. Any blogger can sign up and come. Big blog? Small blog? Red blog? Blue blog? Come out and meet everyone and have some fun in Louisville.
Arizona Flag Has Origins with Shooting Sports
I heard about this a couple of nights ago when Cam had Sandy Froman on his show. Dustin has the details.
Boston Magainze on Sullivan
It seems there might be some problems here:
Because as Sullivan prepares to decamp for DC, taking with him his carefully cultivated reputation for relentlessly cracking down on street crime, he leaves in his wake a basket case of a U.S. Attorney’s Office. Judges are complaining of sloppy briefs and missed deadlines in Sullivan’s shop. Cases are taking longer to resolve than in any other state in the country. And bungling management and sometimes shocking instances of patronage have sunk morale. An estimated dozen assistant U.S. attorneys—the career professionals who do the important legal work—left the office during a recent 12-month stretch.
Given that track record, it’s fitting that Sullivan feels such warmth for Alberto Gonzales, his old boss at the ATF and U.S. Attorney’s Office, whose going-away party he marked with this dewy-eyed toast: “When I think of the attorney general, three words come to mind: discipline, duty, and honor.â€
When I think of Alberto Gonzoles, I have a different image:
Hat tip to Red’s Trading Post for the story.
The Reasons for The DC Gun Ban
Ahab covers it here:
Read that very carefully. They knew that the gun ban wouldn’t work, but they passed it anyway because they wanted to “start a national trendâ€. It’s a perfect example of how the anti-gun mindset works, start small and spread. DC wanted to impose their style of gun control on the entire nation; even today they still want to do that.
It’s never been about crime control. Read the whole thing.
This Scumbag Literally IS a Turd
Apparently alligators in Florida think armed robbers car thieves are mighty tasty.
UPDATE: Apparently the reporter that wrote this doesn’t know what robbery is.
Passing the Buck
If there’s one talent that John Street has, it’s passing the buck. With two new shootings of police officers in the city, and a sixteen year old drug dealing low-life in custody, there’s no failure of his administration that Street seems unwilling to blame on Harrisburg.
Street and Johnson said the latest round of police-targeted violence underscored the need for stricter gun laws.
Street called on Washington and Harrisburg to react.
“They’re not getting the message,” he said of federal and state legislators who have failed to pass tougher gun-control legislation.
But he also said the city was making “progress” in the fight against violence.
“We’re actually making progress, but we’re not getting the help we need,” Street said. “This city is rallying. . . . It’s an uphill and difficult task, but we’re having great success.”
Pushing for gun control is the last refuge of scoundrels, and Street and Johnson definitely fit that description.  What law do they imagine would have stopped this shooting? Make it illegal for 16 year olds to possess a gun? It already is. Make it illegal for someone to give a 16 year old a gun? It already is. Make it illegal to possess a gun while dealing drugs? It already is. What new gun law do they imagine is going to fix this problem?
There isn’t one. Street is passing the buck and the morons who work for the Philadelphia media establishment are letting them get away with it. John Street has been a disaster for the City of Philadelphia, but that story doesn’t get told, because it’s easier just to blame Harrisburg for the “gun” problem, and the media seems to be fine with that explanation.
A Victory of The Mind
Joe Huffman makes a good observation in the comment in regards to my post the other day, where I suggested, in response to a “Mr. and Mrs. America, turn them all in!” scenario would be to plaster one up in my wall:
What will become difficult is to practice and receive formal training. You should be putting several hundred rounds down-range each month just for maintenance. If it becomes illegal to own then range availability as well as (black market) ammo prices will make practice nearly impossible.
Without the practice then you really won’t know if that 75 yard shot at the guard beside “the cattle car filled with Jews†will mean the release of the victims or your death. A 400 yard shot? Forget it. With practice you know what you are capable of (at GBR-2007 do you think I would have started off-hand shooting at the 400 yard plate had I not thought I would be able to make at least a few hits?). With this knowledge you can have the confidence to make plans and execute them.
It is my understanding that the “gardens of eastern Europe were well oiled†because of all the guns buried there. Even as tyrants of eastern rose to power, people were dragged off in the middle of the night, and the gulags killed their 10s of thousands those guns stayed buried in their well oiled graves.
To me, burying your guns is little different than turning them over. It’s only a victory in your mind. You must use them or you have lost them.
That’s a very good point. Practice would be difficult or impossible, and skills would quickly deteriorate, rendering your firearm a short range weapon at best. Another thing I hadn’t considered is that ammo has a fixed shelf life. In 50 years, that 2000 rounds of ammo might no longer be viable.
I’ve never been convinced that a violent movement in response to a federal gun confiscation program would spontaneously erupt, but that action would occur through state governments either actively resisting federal power, or by leaving the United States entirely. I think the place to start would be civil disobedience, as the Canadians are successfully doing with their long gun registration program.
I wouldn’t suggest burying firearms in a wall and then stop fighting, but to continue to push the issue. While I don’t think most gun owners would have the stomach for violent resistance, I don’t think most people would have the stomach to violently enforce a gun confiscation either. If a few states refused to do it, and brought the issue to a head, it might be enough to get folks to back down. Most people aren’t passionate about gun control, and I think that could be used to our advantage if it ever comes to confiscation.