Politics – Page 158 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Odd Gun Charge

This guy honestly isn’t the kind of help we need, but I’m rather curious about the charges here, since he was picked up on Luzerene County Community College’s main campus:

Police charged Christian A. Zaccagni Sr., 47, of Dana Street, Wilkes-Barre, with firearms not to be carried without a license and possessing a weapon on school property. He was arraigned by District Judge Donald Whittaker and jailed at the county correctional facility for lack of $10,000 bail.

Emphasis mine. The problem is that Pennsylvania’s statute in regards to possession on school property is limited to:

… any elementary or secondary publicly-funded educationalÂ institution, any elementary or secondary private school licensedÂ by the Department of Education or any elementary or secondaryÂ parochial school …

And with an exception if a weapon “is possessed for other lawfulÂ purpose.” Now given that he was carrying unlawfully, that exception might be difficult for him to claim. But a community college is not an elementary or secondary school. Violation is a first degree misdemeanor, which is a prohibiting offense for firearms federally if convicted. If this is indeed a charge, it’s a bogus one.

This guy has been in trouble with drugs and providing false ID to police in the past, from what it looks like. This would make him ineligible for an LTCF in Pennsylvania, so even though the application was apparently “sitting on my China cabinet (at home),” that grades the gun carrying offense to a felony of the third degree.

UPDATE: Just discovered those charges were dismissed, so the carry charge is only a felony of the third degree with the school charge. If the school charge gets tossed, he’s down to an M1 for the carrying without a license charge.

Civil Rights Victory

I think Fred Phelps and his family are disgusting, but I think the Supreme Court made the correct choice here.

Look Out Detroit

The Philadelphia metro area is hot your trail:

During the Revolutionary War Philadelphia served as one of Americaâ€™s first capital cities. These days, however, Philadelphia could be considered the capital of toxicity, since the city and its environs ranked No. 1 on our 2011 Most Toxic Cities list. One big reason: The sprawling Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), including parts of four states (Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and one county in Maryland), is pocked with more than 50 Superfund sites—areas no longer in use that contain hazardous waste.

I shouldn’t rag on this area too much though. Philadelphia is not prone to big booms, but it’s also not prone to big busts either. Housing prices here have been relatively stable, and we haven’t seen the inflation yet here that we’ve seen in other areas. Unemployment is still high but not as bad as it is in a lot of other areas. Pennsylvania’s government is better compared to that of New Jersey and New York’s.

Castle Doctrine Passes Judiciary

From Senator Alloway:

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved legislation today sponsored by Senator Richard Alloway II (R-33) to expand the Castle Doctrine in Pennsylvania to protect gun owners who act in self-defense.

On to the Senate floor. The committee was a problem last session, but the makeup has improved a bit, and obviously it’s good news for the bill to have sailed though. It passed by a vote of 10-3. I’ll let you know who the three were when we get that information. There was an attempt to amend Florida Loophole, but the amendment was withdrawn.

UPDATE: Vote breakdown here.

Grumble, Grumble

It’s never fun to admit you’re wrong. It’s really not fun when the outcome of admitting you’re wrong means another tough political battle to fight. My Election Day prediction:

We need to send [Patrick Murphy] home. (Actually, he probably wonâ€™t return to the district. Heâ€™s been a very good fundraiser for bringing in money outside of the district, so I assume heâ€™ll relocate to DC if he loses & become part of the professional political class.)

At the beginning of the year, we learned that anti-gun former Rep. Patrick Murphy was, in fact, going to stick around the district.

My displaced Congress Critter, Patrick Murphy, has taken a job with an area law firm with ties to DC. Probably helps that the Murphy Campaign finance chairman is a partner at that firm. This hints to me that Murphy may be Fitzpatrickâ€™s next challenger in 2012.

Now, he’s speaking to Democratic groups around the state:

Former U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy, a prominent Bucks County Democrat, will speak April 1 in Centre County at a county Democratic Committee gathering, the committee announced.

Venturing about 200 miles outside of your home turf after you just lost an election isn’t usually something done out of the goodness of your heart. It usually means you’re trying to find new donors and raise your profile around the state.

It’s redistricting season here in Pennsylvania. Might I suggest that we cut out a little circle around Patrick Murphy’s house & instead of assigning it to another Pennsylvania district, we just give the property to New Jersey? He’d fit in far better on that side of the river.

Don’t Take the Election Results for Granted

Inspired by an ongoing general email conversation with reader Adam Z., I was inspired to look at the challenges we could still face here in Pennsylvania to pass a clean Castle Doctrine bill this term. I’ve seen more than a few comments from gun owners that assume pro-gun legislation is in the bag & anti-gun bills are no threat at all simply because the Republicans have control of the House, Senate, & Governor’s office.

The fact is that we ran out of time on the bill because opponents were building up support among Republican leaders for anti-gun amendments while the bill was in a Senate committee. The committee chair voted for one of those amendments out on the Senate floor. Guess what gun owners? That guy is still in charge. A new member of the committee had this to say about Castle Doctrine last year:

Yeah, we still have hurdles, folks. If you live in Pennsylvania & your Senator’s name isn’t on this page, then get on the phone. If your Senator’s name is on that page, make sure he/she knows that you want a clean bill & no anti-gun or anti-hunting amendments added to it. It’s time to get Castle Doctrine passed.

UPDATE: Well, that didn’t take long. Here’s the news from NRA on this final evening before the hearing:

Anti-gun groups are working to attach a laundry-list of bad amendments to SB 273 tomorrow. We already know F-rated state Senator Daylin Leach (D-17) will be offering the so-called â€œFlorida Loopholeâ€ amendment which would prohibit the use of out of state Right-to-Carry permits by Pennsylvania residents while inside the Commonwealth. Once again this is an attempt by anti-gun zealots to torpedo this much-needed reform and we cannot allow that to happen.

Arms and the Mideast Crisis

It seems to me that if our opponents made fun of us for suggesting arms in civilian hands might have been handy in Egypt, Libya is a better example of the notion. Peaceful protest only works against a regime that is reluctant to murder its own people wholesale.

Duty to Defend A Law

There have been some very interesting posts over a Volokh on whether or not Obama is right to sandbag on defending the Defense of Marriage Act in Court. The Administration has suggested that the law is unconstitutional. Orin Kerr referred to it as an executive power grab. David Bernstein takes the administration to ask for saying they won’t defend it, but will keep enforcing it. Also, Ilya Somin looks at it from both a theoretical and practical point of view.

Speaking strictly as a matter of theory , I’ve never agreed with the notion that the Supreme Court is the only body that can have an opinion on a law’s constitutionality. While I would agree they certainly have the final say in the matter, I have no issue with a sitting President refusing to enforce or defend laws that President has a good faith belief are unconstitutional. In fact, I expect Presidents to stand by their oath and refuse to enforce or defend unconstitutional laws.

That said, I’m not sure I agree with the President that DOMA is unconstitutional, even if politically I agree with the end result of not defending it. Sandbagging the defense of DOMA could also, potentially, be smart politics for the Democrats. Homosexuality is a divisive issue for Republicans, since acceptance of it alienates social conservatives, while rallying against it tends to scare off younger voters, some independents, and libertarian Republicans.

As long as Republicans are busy making themselves seen as trying to cut deficits and spending, the Democrats are going to be on the losing side of the middle in that debate. If Obama can goad the Republicans into fighting on better ground for the Democrats, namely contentious social issues, it probably helps their party over the long term, as the generation gap on the gay issue gets larger. I don’t think this tactic is going to help them as long as the economy is sour, so the short term effect won’t accomplish anything more than keeping the Democrat base from totally falling apart heading into the 2012 elections. But longer term, the Democrats are on the right side of this issue politically.

More on PGC Public Range Regulations

Bitter got the Pennsylvania Game Commission on the phone and asked them some questions about the new permit requirement for public shooting ranges in Pennsylvania. I think a lot of people will object to the fact that only $200,000 of $11,000,000 in Pittman-Robertson funds goes to range maintenance. This is especially true when you consider handguns make up more than half of PR funds, and very few handguns are used for hunting.

In effect, the whole of the shooting community is subsidizing hunting. This will no doubt be a controversial statement, but I think that shooters should accept this state of affairs. Until this past year, hunting numbers had been in decline, while hunting license fees have been relatively stable, and not kept up with inflation. This means in real terms, state wildlife management budgets have shrunk. Increasing budgets for shooting ranges would mean decreasing budgets to support hunting programs, or raising hunting license fees, which will only serve to drive more people out of the sport.

A lot of people are going to argue that the baby is sick, probably isn’t going to make it to shore, and we’d be far better off just throwing it off the life boat preemptively, so that we can use the supplies for the rest of us. The problem is, hunting is a critical part of this fight, and we’re going to be far weaker politically if we toss that baby over. We have hunting numbers on the upswing. Perhaps that will continue. Time will tell.

Media Bloggers Association Stands up to Righthaven

Media Bloggers Association are standing up for a blogger who was sued, and rather than fight took a default judgement, they argue:

Media Bloggers Association on Wednesday called Righthavenâ€™s demands for damages against Hyatt outrageous given the nature of the alleged infringement and what they call Righthavenâ€™s abusive business model.

If you’re interested in joining, you can sign up here. This might be something I have to consider. Righthaven needs to be stopped. Take, for instance, this Pennsylvania couple who spent six months fighting a lawsuit when they weren’t even the proper party. Supposedly Righthaven has racked up $364,000 in settlements so far. This is a sick and twisted abuse of our legal system.

This blog will continue its policy of scrubbing links to any media outlet that works with Righthaven. I’m not driving traffic and Google love to pond suckers.