Year: 2007

I’ve just become aware of a case in Franklin County, PA of a gentleman who was open carrying while voting last Tuesday, which is perfectly lawful in Pennsylvania, with or without a license to carry firearms. Seems he had a relatively hostile encounter with a Pennsylvania Constable:

When I went to my polling place tonight I was asked by the Constable there if “that was a weapon”. I replied that it was. He said I would have to leave because weapons were not allowed in the polling place. I asked him what law this was based on. He said it was in the Voting Regulations, to which I replied “That applies to police officers”. He said that was correct. He got the regulation book and asked if I would step outside to discuss the matter. I agreed. He turned to the page that had the regulation regarding the police and read it off to me. I told him that I agreed completely, BUT, I was not a police officer, just a private citizen. This seemed to surprise him a bit.

He then made a call to someone who would “Know for sure”. The result of that call was that whoever he called was also unable to come up with anything specific preventing me from voting while carrying. When the call was done, the Constable asked me to please secure my weapon in my vehicle before voting, because it would make him “more comfortable”. I asked him if I would be refused entry to vote if I did not, he said no, that I would be permitted to vote either way. As we went back up the steps and prepared to enter, he stated that he “Just couldn’t understand why someone would need to bring a gun here, especially in this day and age.”

Read the whole thing. A few days later a letter arrives in the mail informing this gentleman that his License to Carry Firearms has been revoked, citing Title 18 § 6109 (e)(1)(i):

[A license shall not be issued to] an individual whose character and reputation is such that the individual would be likely to act in a manner dangerous to public safety.

So the sheriff in Franklin County apparently believes that using your License to Carry Firearms to, you know, actually carry a firearm, and standing up for your right to do so, makes you a person “who’s character or reputation is such” that you are “dangerous to public safety.”  What does Sheriff Bob Wollyung think he’s issues licenses for?  Did he think, maybe that people might want an LTCF to, I don’t know, carry a firearm?

I am becoming increasingly intolerant of the abuse of  § 6109 (e)(1)(i) that I’m seeing in our Commonwealth, and I will support any effort to repeal that discretion which it seems entirely too many jurisdictions are willing to use improperly.

Just one more law is all it will take to stop the illegal flow of guns. Here in Pennsylvania, they say one-gun-a-month is a vital tool needed to combat firearms trafficking to criminals. The same people told us years ago we had to ban private sales on handguns to combat trafficking to criminals, and we did that. So now, “Just One More Law”. But look at how well it’s worked out for the United Kingdom:

Noonan’s brother Dominic was arrested in May of that year in possession of a blank-firing gun that had been imported from Germany and then converted into a deadly weapon. He was later jailed.

But the gun was one of a batch of hundreds imported from Germany by a gang who had employed an engineer to convert them.

The article goes on to say the reason criminals are manufacturing firearms is because it’s a heftier profit margin to machine a blank firing replica gun into a firing gun, than it is to buy real ones on the black market. Hardly surprising, but now Britain is pushing the EU to place regulations on replica guns. All it will take is “just one more law”, and the criminals will give up making a living by trying to hurt others. If the gun control folks want to know why we aren’t willing to work together, it’s because they will always need “just one more law.”

UPDATE: More from Jeff.

UPDATE: Ahab too.