Eric takes the latest bomb from political cartoonist Tony Auth, of the Philadelphia Inquirer, to task.
Category: Guns
Brady Campaign Reaction
Thanks to reader kaveman, we have an exclusive Brady e-mail alert reaction to The Court announcing it will hear Heller.
Just minutes ago, the U.S. Supreme Court decided to take what could be the most significant Second Amendment case in our country’s history.
Thanks to your support, your Brady legal team had already begun preparing for this announcement, but now our lawyers have swung into high gear to prepare our “friend of the court” brief.
We have a tidal wave of work to do in the weeks ahead and we need your help now.
This fight is so critical that we need to raise $50,000 by November 30. And since your gift will be going to our Brady Gun Law Defense Fund, it will be fully tax deductible!
We need your help today to build a strong Brady Gun Law Defense Fund to protect America’s gun laws. Please give today.
Earlier this year, a U.S. Court of Appeals struck down a gun law as violating the Second Amendment for the first time in American history. We believe this decision was judicial activism at its worst and was clearly wrong.
This legal case at its very core is the most important battle we have ever waged. The U.S. Supreme Court has the chance to reverse a terribly erroneous decision and make it clear that the American people can adopt restrictions on firearms in their communities.
If the Supreme Court does not reverse the federal appeals court decision, gun laws everywhere could be at risk…
…from the long-standing machine gun ban…to the 1968 Gun Control Act…to the Brady background check law.
…to your local and state laws…like the ones in California and New Jersey banning military-style Assault Weapons… and many more.
If that happens, then your Brady Center will defend these laws in the courts as we have done so many times in the past against the attacks of the gun lobby. But now we must focus on the immediate challenge at hand as we prepare for the fight in the U.S. Supreme Court. Please give generously.
Friends of The Court briefs are expensive, and the Brady Campaign isn’t exactly swimming in loot these days. The Brady’s definitely understand that this one is for all the marbles. The machine gun ban, and the gun control act of 1968 could be in jeopardy? I can only hope!
Vote Breakdown
Here’s how the votes came down.
- HB 18 on weakening preemption. 10 Yeas, 19 Nays
- HB 22 on rationing gun sales. 12 Yeas, 17 Nays
- HB 29 on reporting lost/stolen guns. Tabled
The message: Pennsylvania is an overwhelmingly pro-gun rights state. I hope Bryan Miller and Ed Rendell enjoy their holidays. I certainly will spend it savoring their sound defeat.
“Go Time!”
That was Uncle’s statement to me in an e-mail, in reaction to the Supreme Court agreeing to take Heller. What kind of things would be useful to do between now and then? I have some ideas for our gun rights organizations to consider.
The Supreme Court is supposed to be non-political, but we all know that’s a half-truth. The fact is, The Courts in the latter part of the last century were very reluctant to interfere with the exercise of legislative power. We want the justices on The Court to have some idea what the sentiment of Congress is.
What I would propose is to lobby Congress to pass a non-binding (meaning not law) resolution stating that it’s the opinion of the lawmakers that the second amendment protects an individual right. That would put the legislative branch in agreement with the executive branch, and give any possible fence sitters on the court some breathing room. It would also serve to get certain politicians on record (*cough* Hillary *cough*) as to how they stand on the second amendment.
Why would Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic leadership in Congress support such a measure?  Because if the Supreme Court rules the wrong way in the Heller case, they can kiss goodbye their ambitions for taking the White House in 2008. Gun control will be on top of the agenda, and whether their nominee is Hillary or Obama, a Republican who touts that he will put conservative justices on The Court will look a lot better in comparison to either of those two. Democrats are not going to want this issue to come to a boil in 2008, so I think they could be convinced to pass something like this.
What say you all?
Heller Quote of the Day
It’s been a good time lately for quotes:
So what do you think Peter Hamm is doing right now? We can take solace knowing that Paul Helmke’s Turkey Day will be spent on the phone with lawyers.
– Bitter’s response to me being nervous about Heller
I feel better already.
We’re Going to the Supreme Court
SCOTUSBlog has it. Great news, but I’m going to be crapping thumbtacks over this until we get a positive ruling.
 After a hiatus of 68 years, the Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to rule on the meaning of the Second Amendment — the hotly contested part of the Constitution that guarantees “a right to keep and bear arms.â€Â Not since 1939 has the Court heard a case directly testing the Amendment’s scope — and there is a debate about whether it actually decided anything in that earlier ruling. In a sense, the Court may well be writing on a clean slate if it, in the end, decides the ultimate question: does the Second Amendment guarantee an individual right to have a gun for private use, or does it only guarantee a collective right to have guns in an organized military force such as a state National Guard unit?
Read the whole thing.
The Tabled Bill
H.B. 29, the lost and stolen provision, was tabled by the legislature:
The committee tabled a measure that would have required gun owners to report to police immediately any gun that was lost or stolen. Owners could face fines or even jail time if they failed to do so. Mr. Rendell said such a reporting requirement would go a long way toward stopping “straw purchasers,” people without a police record who are paid money by criminals to buy guns for them.
Technically, tabling the bill keeps it alive. Rep. Dan Frankel, D-Squirrel Hill, who supported all the bills, said there was some concern among some members that a law-abiding gun owner could face jail time if he or she unintentionally misplaced a gun or failed to report a lost weapon to police. He said the bill may be amended and brought up for a vote sometime later.
There’s very little way they could change this bill to make it acceptable to me. The more protections for lawful gun owners that get put in it, the weaker its usefulness is as a tool to go after people suspected of straw purchasing, and the case for this bill is already very weak. If someone is guilty of straw purchasing, they should be charged with that. This bill will always have the potential to punish honest gun owners along with criminals.
Scratch Three Down in Flames
We have successfully killed Rendell’s gun controlling ambitions in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for the time being. The “Lost and Stolen”, H.B. 29 was tabled.  The remaining two, H.B. 18 weakning state preemption, and H.B. 22 “One-Gun-a-Month” were outright voted down.
Quotes from the Governor
Don’t tell me it’s because our justice system is weak. It’s because there are too many guns out there in the hands of the wrong people, And putting those people in jail is one of the answers, but it is not the only answer.
– Governor Ed Rendell, 11/19/2007
In Ed’s world, the other part of the equation is putting you in jail, which is exactly what his bill on reporting lost and stolen guns will have the potential to do if the innocent gun owner gets caught unaware if this obscure law ends up on the books.
Remember, they want this law to punish people they suspect of straw purchasing, but can’t prove it. You just better hope the authorities never suspect you of being a straw purchaser after someone uses one of your stolen firearms in a crime. You could be caught unaware like a dolphin in the Governor’s tuna net of a bill.
More Quotes From Philly Politicians
“To some extent, we need to create a public policy saying we want to cut down on the availability of guns,” Rep. Myers told The Bulletin. “I really can’t even imagine where I would store 12 guns in my house in a year.”
So his goal is to make guns less available to you and me. At least he’s honest. I’ve run afoul of a potential one-gun-a-month law a few times in my life. I’m not interested in seeing that which shall not be questioned be questioned by the likes of Representative Myers so he and every other Philadelphia politician can continue to deflect blame for their own failures.  If that wasn’t enough, the article I got that from has more:
“My bill would tell people that they must be responsible to report their guns lost or stolen,” the bill’s sponsor Rep. Jewell Williams (D-Philadelphia) said. Gun owners “should be thankful” for it, he said, because it will extricate them from liability for paying a victim’s medical bills or punitive damages if their gun was used by another individual.
If my firearm is stolen from me by a criminal, can Mr. Williams explain to me under what theory in a just and fair legal system I would be liable for the actions of that criminal? I should be thankful to Mr. Williams to be relieved from liability I shouldn’t have in the first place? Does Mr. Williams believe the victim of the crime is more responsible than the criminal that perpetrated it?
This is what the Philadelphia politicians think of you. You are lower than a common thief in their eyes. Give them nothing.  Make some phone calls.