Politics – Page 240 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Scranton Looks to Challenge State Preemption Laws

It looks like the Scranton City Council wants to hop on board with the effort to end Pennsylvania’s preemption on local gun laws with a lost and stolen requirement. What’s different about this case is that it would be the first city with a mayor who is not in Bloomberg’s anti-gun coalition to pass this illegal law. Of the nine cities that have passed it and the one that passed a resolution in support of it, all have mayors who are supporters of Mike Bloomberg’s initiatives.

With the mayor of Scranton running for Governor, this may not be the kind of attention he wants for the town. It would be wise for gun owners in the city to get him on their side, as well as call all of the Council members listed in the ILA alert.

Colosimo’s Closing Up Shop

His attorney says he’s going to close. ATF is planning to revoke his FFL, and he does not plan to contest it. He’s still apparently debating whether he’s going to fight the criminal charge against his corporation.

Federal authorities began investigating Colosimo’s after the protests, and the ATF since has filed a notice to revoke his federal license to sell firearms, said Colosimo’s attorney, Joe Canuso.

So ATF didn’t inspect this guy until after the protests? That must be how he kept the FFL for so long. If ATF is doing a retrospective paperwork inspection, how are they determining that the sale was to a straw buyer, and that it was willful? It would be one thing if they conducted a sting, but if ATF is just now looking through his paperwork, how is intent being determined? Is it similar to ATFs traditional approach, which is if it was an error in paperwork, it clearly had to have been willful? How often does ATF find paperwork problems at other FFLs it inspects that don’t end up facing charges? These aren’t just semantics. The section of the United States Code the corporation is charged under is Title 18, Chapter 44, 922(m):

It shall be unlawful for any licensed importer, licensed manufacturer, licensed dealer, or licensed collector knowingly to make any false entry in, to fail to make appropriate entry in, or to fail to properly maintain, any record which he is required to keep pursuant to sectionÂ 923 of this chapter or regulations promulgated thereunder.

The statute requires intention to violate, so the United States would need to have evidence that that there was intent to commit a violation. What’s the evidence of that? These are questions that deserve an answer, but we will never find out of Mr. Colosimo doesn’t contest the charges against his company. If the charges are true, fine, plead guilty, by all means. But if they are false, the federal government should be forced to meet its burden before a judge and jury.

Prosecution by Information

The US Attorneys have released the information associated with the prosecution of Colosimo’s gun shop. Â They have also issued a press release as well. What strikes me is the complaint against them doesn’t really offer any evidence that his paperwork was a willful violation, it just states that is the case. Paperwork errors are not that uncommon in a high volume gun business. Few FFLs can get everything right 100% of the time. The question still remains why ATF allowed him to keep operating all these years if he was engaging in willful violations of the condition of his license. When was the last time ATF inspected the records of Colosimos? Â What violations were found? These are key questions in this case, that I think the public ought to know.

But the fact is, if this is a deal where Colosimo’s Inc. is going to plead guilty, the District Attorney doesn’t need to bring forth detailed evidence, since the defendant will admit he is guilty . He will not force the state to meet its burden, and so it won’t bother.

I can’t say I would entirely blame James Colosimo, at age 77, if he agreed to plead guilty rather than risk financial and personal ruin trying to fight charges in front of a jury. But it should be understood that by admitting to such actions, he will not get to enter retirement with his dignity, and in the right. He will have admitted his shop was engaged in criminal activity, and that’s not something I’m going to support. Everything the anti-gun folks have said about Colosimo’s will have be admitted to as true. Whether that’s just a matter of legal fact, rather than actual fact, I don’t think is important. Colosimos will be a criminal gun shop, and that’s how it will be remembered. James Colosimo might get to retire in peace, but that will be little comfort for the next gun shop that ends up in the crosshairs.

This is one of those businesses, when you get too tired to cross every ‘t’ and dot every ‘i’, and even more importantly, when you lose interest in standing up for what’s right, it’s time to give up the FFL, close up shop, and get out of the business.

It’s Hard to Take This Kind of Thinking Seriously

Our token anti-gunner makes a classic cognitive error when it comes to politics:

Why do you think there are such great differences between Republicans and Democrats. My own idea, very unscientific and totally without proof, is that among the Republicans you’ve got the mindless close-minded masses who cannot think outside their pre-conceived notions of how things should be. These are the millions who listen to Beck and Limbaugh and O’reilly for their inspiration. Among the Democrats, on the other hand, you’ve got the open-minded, the seekers, the idealists, folks who are generally better educated and better able to distinguish right from wrong.

Either that, or people who are into hunting, shooting, or who have a gun for self-defense, very strongly value that right and identify more with the party who has a stronger reputation for defending it. It’s always tempting to think of the other side as marching lemmings, and your side as enlightened thinking individuals, but down that rabbit hole lies madness. There’s plenty of political ignorance on both sides of the spectrum, and plenty of places you can find echo chambers, and opportunists telling people what they want to hear. It might not take the same form on both sides of the aisle, but any serious engagement in political discourse reveals MikeB’s assertion to be nonsense.

Heeding God’s Call Feeling Vindicated

One of the members of the group that protested outside of Colosimo’s is feeling vindicated with the arrival of federal charges:

Little did we know that while we were meeting the U.S. Attorney’s office was charging Mr. Colism with falsifying statements and failing to keep accurate records. On a practical level, it appears that our activities may have called attention to this particularly notorious gun dealer, and moved the process along in bringing him to justice. On another level, today feels like a vindication of our efforts, and an affirmation that God is indeed working in and through our efforts.

Is he being brought to justice though? I’ll one up you, Professor. I’m going to suggest the US Attorney is going easy on this guy rather than throwing the book at him. I would like to understand why. The accusation is that he knowingly sold a firearm to a person he knew not to be the actual buyer of the firearm, and that those firearms were later recovered from criminals. In the reports, he’s accused of doing this not once, but ten times over the course of five years. Yet the US Attorney’s office isn’t pressing charges against Mr. Colosimo himself, but rather against Colosimo, Inc, the corporate entity. This basically puts the maximum penalty at a fine and probation for the corporation, which means a judge gets to oversee the operation of the corporate entity. Â There’s no jail time involved. I would argue that if Mr. Colosimo knowingly sold firearms to straw purchasers, he ought to be facing charges himself.

The US Attorneys office seems to be proceeding with a Prosecution by Information, which means that Colosimo’s has waived its right to have the evidence in the case presented to a Grand Jury. Usually a defendant will not do this unless they intend to plead guilty to the charge. This leads me to believe the US Attorney likely cut a deal with Colosimo, either because they didn’t see any use in prosecuting an old man, or because they weren’t confident in taking a case forward against Colosimo himself, and cut a deal where the corporate entity agreed to plead guilty.

But I don’t just meant to question the US Attorney’s office over why they are going after the company and not the man, I also think the ATF needs to explain, if the US Attorney has had evidence that Colosimos was knowingly selling to straw buyers, why it allowed Colosimos to continue operating? I would assume ATF has inspected this dealer in the past? What did they find? If it warranted charges, why was his FFL not revoked?

Lots of questions still in this case. Hopefully we’ll get answers as more information comes to light.

I Don’t Think This Will Help Obama …

… keep the hippy vote. Remember kids, the Democrats are the party of choice.

Colosimo Facing Gun Charges

Looks like the U.S. Attorney’s office in Philadelphia is bringing charges against James Colosimo of Colosimo’s gun shop. According to another source, the charge is related to false statements and bad record keeping:

Patty Hartman with the US attorney’s office says that Colosimo’s, the well-known Philadelphia gun dealership, is being charged with knowingly selling guns to people who would not be the actual gun owners:

“The information alleges that there were 10 firearms that were “straw purchased” from Colosimo’s Inc. from on or about August 4th, 2004, through on or about April 18th, 2007.”

We’ve previously been supportive of Colosimo’s when they were targeted by overzealous activists, but a US Attorney is a different matter. Â If they are indeed guilty of what is alleged here, I have no problem with harsh punishment, but it will be up to a grand jury to decide whether the prosecution has enough evidence for this to proceed to a trial.

UPDATE: Maybe not:

Jim Colosimo, the owner of Colosimo’s Gun Center on Spring Garden Street near Ninth Street, was not personally charged. He could not be reached for comment last night.

The charges against the business were contained in a criminal information, which means the defendant waived the right to have the case heard before a grand jury. A criminal information can mean the defendant will plead guilty, though that is not always the case.

The information charges the gun dealership with making false entries in gun-sales records by listing three buyers as the firearms purchasers “when the defendant knew or had reason to believe that each person was not the actual buyer, but was a straw purchaser.”

That seems to be really unusual to me. Why didn’t ATF pull his FFL if they were aware of this? Plus, they are charging the corporation rather than Colosimo himself, even though the law allows for him to be prosecuted personally? If he’s selling guns to criminals, knowingly, and it can be proved, shouldn’t the US attorney want to put Colosimo in federal prison? It seems to me that would be appropriate. Why charge the company? I will definitely keep abreast of developments in this case.

Making a Difference

It’s amazing what you can do for the Second Amendment in just a few minutes. As you all know by now, Sebastian and I are NRA Election Volunteer Coordinators that assist pro-gun candidates in finding NRA members who want to be politically involved to help keep Pennsylvania pro-gun. It’s not a terribly time consuming task, and it pays off when we hear that candidates specifically recognize gun owners as making a difference to their campaign.

I had a phone conversation today with a State Senate candidate and his Campaign Volunteer Coordinator who are gearing up for a special election next week. Rep. Bob Mensch is running for the open Senate seat in district 24, and yesterday we announced NRA-PVF’s endorsement in the race. Rep. Mensch’s opponent has been dodging debates and interviews, and she doesn’t exactly seem to be up on relevant state issues – something important for those who want state office. I haven’t seen her say a word about gun rights, only a friend of hers claiming in one interview that she used to hunt. So this could be potentially bad news for gun owners if this seat goes from an A rated candidate to an unknown who, at best, has her friend pay a simple platitude to hunting.

But back to that phone call. Knowing that they have the endorsement of NRA-PVF is huge news to Rep. Mensch’s campaign. Even though they are polling ahead of the Democratic candidate, it’s a seat that her party wants to win. In a special election where people may forget to vote, it’s vitally important that we make sure gun owners and other friendly-to-the-cause voters show up. So that is where Rep. Mensch needs our help. I’m about to put out an email to all of our contacts up here with the call to action, and information on how they can at least get a sign up in their yard even if they can’t help on Election Day.

I can’t tell you how excited the campaign staffer was over that offer to get the word out to those willing to volunteer. Just knowing that they have the NRA endorsement and then to have us call the very next day offering to try and scrounge up volunteers, they were so appreciative. The volunteer coordinator couldn’t express enough how much it meant to have a gun owner call and ask how to make the biggest difference for the campaign. Ultimately, these are the actions that make things go smoothly for us at the State House. These are the things that you can do to make a difference in your state – a tangible difference.

As easy as it is to just pound away on the keyboard, and as much as I do think new media is useful, these types of activities – picking up the phone and offering to help, and getting involved at the local level – are what make the most difference when it matters on an important vote. So with that in mind, I’m going to head up to the district on Tuesday and help with the GOTV operation. I may even poke Sebastian and see if he wants to go up this weekend and contribute a few hours. I think even he was rather amazed in November when at the end of a two hour calling shift, you could look down and realized you just reached 200+ voters, or in doing on precinct walk, you hit 50 households of voters. That kind of local reach is hard to do with a new media, so these kinds of traditional local political activities ought not be discounted by those who spend time in the internet world.

Security Theater Quote of the Day

From Joe Huffman, on the TSA’s new attention on powders aboard aircraft:

I wonder ifÂ my post contributed to that. I know it got some attention by “government employees”.

If it was my fault I’mÂ not going to say I am sorry. One of the ways you get people to rethink their security systems is to overload them with false positives. If I could only demonstrate that it were relatively easy to bring down a plane by grinding up you hair into a fine powder and making an improvised explosive device out of it using a couple coins as tools…

What Joe is getting at is there’s really no way to adequately protect against the level of threat TSA is trying to protect against. It’s quite impossible to successfully screen for these kinds of items without a body cavity search. It was pointed out by science fiction writer David Brin not too long after 9/11:

Despite the yammerings on TV, a lack of security measures did not cause this tragedy. No, the failure on 9/11 was almost entirely one of DOCTRINE — a policy on how to deal with hijackers that was taught to pilots, flight attendants and the public for forty years.

He goes on to suggest what did work that day — individual initiative — that it was the passengers abroad flight 93 that changed the doctrine within an hour of the WTC attacks after they heard of it on their cell phones.

The doctrinal transformation â€“ or change in the rules of engagement â€“ took place swiftly and decisively, without deliberation by sober government agencies or sage committees. Three average men changed it upon hearing news via their own â€˜intelligence networkâ€™. They acted as soldiers, heroes, without waiting for permission. Itâ€™s called initiative, a civic virtue, part of our national character that doesnâ€™t get enough attention. Not from leaders and certainly not from our enemies.

You can’t defend against the level of threat Joe speaks of, and it’s probably not even worth it to try. Â TSA should concentrate on the obvious threats, that can be easily screened for, and not worry so much about the threats you can’t screen for. Air travel is already miserable enough with all the security theater. The last thing we need is more of it.

Another Round of Good News for Us, Bad News for Bloomberg

On Friday morning, I noticed that the little counter on the MAIG website had Bloomberg’s numbers down to 400 mayors. Meanwhile, the news release touting more than 450 mayors was running on the website. (Apparently they haven’t discovered the memory hole, even though this would be an appropriate use for it.) Later that day, after more mayors were scrubbed, Sebastian noted that they removed the counter completely so you can no longer easily count the number of mayors in their organization. All of this happened after they removed their handy map and moved a request to join to the top of the home page.

So with all of the changes that Bloomberg is so desperate to hide, let’s do a survey of where we stand in the effort to oust mayors from anti-gun coalition:

NRA’s Postcard Mailing
NRA sent a postcard to members in select cities of MAIG coalition members in Pennsylvania and around the country. They set up a corresponding website and interactive map inspired by our use of the same type of map for Pennsylvania. We did directly contribute to quite a bit of research on mayors nationwide, but especially on Pennsylvania mayors based on information uncovered while doing the long series of initial Bloomberg posts.

Obviously, as the 800 lb. gorilla, their mailing has generated many media hits and direct pressure on mayors around the state. Reports range from anecdotal stories of small town mayors swamped by angry residents wondering what the hell they have been doing to small town mayors facing censure votes for making their town look anti-gun to NRA members simply giving up and not even picking up the phone. Some good, some awesome, and some sad.

PAFOA’s Educational Outreach
Shortly after the Bloomberg series of posts, Pennsylvania Firearms Owners Association wrote to 15 mayors the organization thought they might be able to influence informing them of positions taken in their name and politely asking the mayors to resign from Bloomberg’s coalition. This morning PAFOA decided to turn up the pressure and asked their local members to call their mayors and again ask for their resignation. While the organization is not as large as NRA, it is full of activists who are more likely to be inspired to act quickly on the hells of success in other towns.

So where to do we stand as we head into this next round of taking out Bloomberg’s power structure in Pennsylvania?

On August 17, I reported there were 103 mayors in Pennsylvania who were members of MAIG. Â We’re now down to 87. Â Fifteen of those mayors left by resigning from the organization and one died.
In the same post, I asked: “Do you think the 684 residents of Ulysses know that Mayor Jane Haskins was campaigning against concealed carry and has supported lawsuits that put gun shops out of business?” Â Mayor Haskins was among the first to leave the organization after the NRA postcards landed in her town.
I also noted a geographical surprise: “It might surprise people to see that most of the mayors who support Michael Bloomberg are not in the Philadelphia suburbs. In fact, 32% of the mayors are in far western Congressional districts.” Â The statistical breakdown runs just about the same. Â Only 25% of the mayors who have departed the organization were from those far west Congressional districts. Â If they convince more mayors to leave, then we’ll have a more expected spread.
In August, the number of residents reached by Mayor Mike’s message was 2,899,142. Â We’ve cut that down more than 33,000. Â (Half of that number is Philadelphia alone. Â The other big contributer is Pittsburgh. Â It would be tough to convince either mayor to leave. Â So a drastic change won’t likely happen with this statistic.)
The following day, I mentioned that Pennsylvania is the largest source of mayors for the anti-gun crusade. Â “If he has at least 450 mayors, that means 23% of them are from Pennsylvania!” Â Even reduced to 87, with all of the other mayors flocking to leave the coalition, we still have 22% here in Pennsylvania. Â That’s disappointing, but it is a very small dent that we’ll keep working to make bigger.
I also mentioned that nine mayors have pushed illegal preemption-violating local gun ordinances have been members of MAIG. Â Unfortunately, I don’t have great news to report on this front. Â The York mayor who is proudly standing by Bloomberg pushed through a resolution supporting one gun a month in Pennsylvania after this campaign started. Â However, this does reiterate that we need to reduce Bloomberg’s numbers to keep his influence minimal.

So overall, we’re not doing too badly. Â However, there is still a lot of room for improvement. Â By far, Pennsylvania has more mayors than any other state. Â And if gun owners here don’t get active, they will lose their rights. Â This is just one move, but it’s disabling what Bloomberg has envisioned as the future of the gun control movement. Â We might as well make him a political liability and cut this thing off at the knees, so-to-speak.

For those who wonder about the PA mayors who have left, here’s the latest list:

Akron Mayor John McBeth
Beech Creek Mayor David E. Orr
Bowmanstown Mayor Keith G. Billig
Brackenridge Mayor Jeffrey Cowan
East Berlin Mayor Keith Hoffman
Gettysburg Mayor William Troxell
Harmony Mayor Cathryn H. Rape
Midway Mayor Karen Bartosh
Mt. Penn Mayor Josh Nowotarski
North Irwin Mayor Leonard L. Santimyer
Slatington Mayor Walter Niedermeyer
Summit Hill Mayor Paul R. McArdle
Tower City Mayor Dale Deiter
Ulysses Mayor Jane Haskins
West Reading Mayor Shane Keller

If your town or boro is on this list, please take a moment to call your mayor and say thank you.