The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …
… in Bruce’s neck of the woods. One thing though:
At Skip’s Gun and Sports store, dubbed “Daycare for Men†on their signature red shirts, the GOP hopeful admired different types of guns and talked about his support for the 2nd Amendment.
Daycare for men? That’s so 20th century shooting culture. Get used to it fellas: the times they are a changin.
At least that’s what Barack Obama says:
But the campaign of Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said that he “…believes that we can recognize and respect the rights of law-abiding gun owners and the right of local communities to enact common sense laws to combat violence and save lives. Obama believes the D.C. handgun law is constitutional.”
Obama need to learn two things here: One, local governments don’t have rights, they have powers. People have rights. One would presume to ask whether we think it’s appropriate for the federal government to give up protecting the free speech rights of Americans in favor of local regulation.
Two, the rest of the country isn’t Chicago. Outside of the reality distortion field that emanates from the windy city, believing in a total prohibition on firearms is way outside mainstream viewpoints.
This is a big part of why I think you can stick a fork in Obama. Bill Richardson give a lot more to Hillary as a VP pick than Obama, and I expect she’ll make that choice. Obama offers Hillary nothing at this point, because he’s a caricature of a lot of ideas that make people uncomfortable about Hillary. Richardson might help Hillary take a few more states than she otherwise would.
Geekwitha.45 and EgregiousCharles actually went to Harrisburg to help stick it to Rendell personally. He relays to us why HB 29, the lost and stolen gun reporting requirement, is a bad idea, and also relays some of the substance of questioned that were asked about the bill.
Ahab has the digs on Darfuris being denied their right to bear arms. I think we can predict where this one is going.
I managed to find a copy of the polling data Governor Rendell was touting, bought and paid for by CeaseFire PA. Let’s look at some of these polling questions and you tell me how loaded you think the questions are:
In the last week in Philadelphia, three police officer were shot, including one fatally. Which statement do you agree with more:
1. These shootings represent a crisis that needs to be dealth with immediate, and a part of the solution is to pass common sense handgun safety laws to protect our police officers
2. The shootings are a tragedy, but we should not rush to trample on our right to bear arms to address the problem.
61% of 600 Pennsylvania voters went with 1, and 32% with 2. The questions for the lost or stolen bill, which garnered 96% approval, were:
Support for handgun safety measures: Require handgun owners to immediate report lost or stolen guns to the police?
What if you phrased it this way?
Support for gun control measure: A firearm owner convicted of failing to report a lost or stolen firearm to the police can face a felony charge involving several years in prison?
Of course, that might not get them the result they want. There was a time when politicians might have paid attention to these polls, but when they did, gun owners voted a lot of them out of office. How did that happen if we’re such a minority? Because polls don’t matter. What matters is what motivates people to vote, and when we get screwed, we show up at the polls and pull the lever for the other guy. Hard core gun rights activists may be a minority, but a lot of people care about our issue. People who care bout implementing gun control enough to vote it? Now there’s a minority.
Assuming we prevail in Heller, Joe Huffman has a good suggestion on how to proceed…. that is cautiously. One of my chief fears is that people will start pushing second amendment claims against things like machine gun possession.  While I would like to see the second amendment include a right to possess automatic firearms, it’s not something to start out of the gate with.
As for what to try after the DC ban?  There’s not much easy pickings at the federal level.  The ban on National Parks is the only thing that comes to mind, but I think incorporation is probably a better thing to try to get before going after the “bearing” part, rather than the “keeping” part. We could go after the “sporting purposes” clause, but then someone has to get prosecuted for importing a firearm before it can be challenged.
Well, strictly speaking it’s true. But that’s not to say a Kalashnikov can’t get the job done. The 7.62x39mm Soviet round will kill deer just fine.
Uncle refutes some media myths about castle doctrine in Texas, and points out that the hysterical media coverage might be responsible for the incident in question:
Why would he think that a law that eliminates the duty to retreat instead justifies killing two burglars that were not an imminent threat to him and were not on his property? Probably because he heard that line repeated over and over by the anti-gunners in press coverage of the bill.
Maybe now it’s time to start being factual and doing research? Nah! Sensationalizing stories is easier and sells more papers.
Want to help out with the DC v. Heller case?  Donate to Academics for the Second Amendment so they can file a friends of the court brief on behalf of Dick Heller.
NRA has a list of who did and who didn’t vote in favor of the gun control bills before the House Judiciary Committee this morning.
Please contact the members of the House Judiciary Committee TODAY and thank those that voted “No†to these anti-gun measures. Also, please contact those committee members that voted “yes†and ask them why they voted to restrict the rights of Pennsylvania’s law-abiding gun owners.
I agree, it’s important to follow up with the legislators. It’s important to let our allies know their support is appreciated, and to let our foes know we’re paying attention. Follow the link to get contact info, and to find out how house members voted.
UPDATE: Looking back at my predictions, there were a few surprises:
Representative Chelsea Wagner (wow, she may be in favor of gun control, but she’s pretty cute), who replaced NRA A rated Mike Diven, voted against us on both bills.  That’s really disappointing.
Representative Kate Harper voted with us on weakning preemption and against us on one-gun-a-month. She keeps her C rating for that, I think. I thought she’d cave to Rendell completely. Glad I was wrong.
Representative Mackereth I put down as maybe, and she voted with us. She responded to me:
Please know that I will NOT be supporting HB 18, 22, or 29. I feel the focus should be placed on prevention programs that have been proven to work rather than band-aid measures that are ineffective. I am continuing my efforts to focus on crime prevention, while protecting the rights of gun owners.
Good show. NRA should upgrade her B+ to an A rating.
Representative Bernie O’Neil voted with us on preemption but against us on one-gun-a-month. That’s disappointing, because he’s from my county. He’s A- rated. I might suggest that after this he deserves to lose a whole letter grade and go to B-.