Pennsylvania State Representative Steve Santarsiero called for confiscation of semi-automatic rifles in December, but he’s since scaled back his legislative plans into “background checks.” This post will track his press conference to further restrict gun sales in Pennsylvania. Right now, we’re waiting on the live video link to start working.
UPDATE: So, um, still no press conference. The House Democrats are promoting it with a link, but there’s nothing at the link. D’oh!
UPDATE: Well, it looks like we little voters have been brushed aside in covering this gun control announcement. The presser started, as evidenced by media in the room:
Some have pointed out that we don’t know what Pat Toomey is bringing to the table on gun control, and that it might not actually be any more than fixing the current background check system. That’s true. That’s why I’m not calling for Full Outrage! yet.
Dancing around and avoiding an issue annoys people, but encouraging or allowing your staff to tell lies burns people. It turns off activists and evangelists for your candidacy. Only the party faithful want to get involved with a candidate who will instruct his staff to tell voters he wasn’t working on a bill while he is in the meeting working on that bill.
No one believes that politicians are angels. Many believe they barely qualify as human. No one believes that politicians are truly and totally honest. Many believe they can’t pass a lie detector test that only asks their name. Those views don’t mean that, as voters, they like being told an outright lie.
Back to the actual content of the bill, we don’t know what’s in it. DC folks are trying to tell us tonight that it’s no big deal. Supposedly, it will just cover sales at gun shows and online. However, we’ve already heard promises from the very people Toomey worked with on this bill that they would just go after background checks for actual sales, and look what kind of language they actually gave us. There’s a good chance that those of us who aren’t in DC may not know what is in the bill until after it has passed (assuming they have the votes).
At this point, Toomey has taken a huge political risk that he’s hoping Pennsylvania voters won’t remember in 2016. The message many gun owners will take from this is that Sen. Toomey will lie to them as readily as any anti-gun candidate challenging him. Commenter Patrick H. summed up something I was saying to Sebastian as all of this started falling into place tonight:
It’s not just that he didn’t go with the filibuster. It’s not that he even voted on a gun control bill. He is actively writing one, and this was after everything seemed dead.
It’s like Pat Toomey went looking for a fight on guns. Why? Harry Reid seemingly couldn’t find the votes to pass anything. Now, President Obama is going to brand this as a Republican bill as much as a Democratic one. With this outreach to anti-gun leaders, Toomey has also likely hurt the brand of many of his GOP counterparts in the Senate.
The rest of the week looks interesting, to say the least.
Well, now we get the official confirmation that Sen. Pat Toomey is helping to write a gun control bill:
Toomey spox: “Senators Toomey and Manchin continue to work on final details but they appear close to a deal.” — Jonathan Tamari (@JonathanTamari) April 9, 2013
NBC News is also reporting that Toomey’s spokesperson is scheduling a press conference alongside Sen. Joe Manchin to celebrate this victory.
There’s nothing on what deal he’s putting together, but Pennsylvania voters need to make every single phone in every single office ring loud and clear tomorrow morning. Every office that allows voicemails should have a completely full box by the time staff arrive. Call tonight; call again tomorrow.
Need a reminder for his numbers?
DC – (202) 224-4254 (full)
Allentown – (610) 434-1444 (full)
Erie – (814) 453-3010 (full)
Harrisburg – (717) 782-3951 (full)
Philadelphia – (215) 241-1090 (full)
Pittsburgh – (412) 803-3501 (full)
Scranton – (570) 941-3540 (full)
Johnstown – (814) 266-5970
I doubt a flood of calls will truly change his mind at this point, but the debate isn’t over and there have been no votes cast, so the message that gun owners are not happy needs to be sent loud and clear.
I’m just baffled. I would not agree with a vote on a bill, but I can at least understand the pressure to cast a vote will be an issue for some senators on both sides of the aisle. But, this, this is just politically stupid. Now the narrative is that Sen. Toomey is writing gun control bills. He isn’t just under pressure to vote in this case, he went out of his way to write a bill.
As a reader on Twitter noted, Pat Toomey just gave a political victory to Obama, and I would argue that we just lost at least two House GOP votes from Pennsylvania on this issue, if not three to four votes. (Toomey’s support now makes it damn near politically impossible for Representatives Fitzpatrick and Meehan to oppose the bill. It makes it very tough for Gerlach and, perhaps, Dent.)
If you call and find out that a voice mail is already full, check in here, please.
According to Politico, Sen. Joe Manchin has until 5pm to cut a deal on gun control. If he doesn’t, Reid just starts moving what they have.
If you live in Pennsylvania, call Sen. Toomey’s office RIGHT NOW. We couldn’t get through to his DC office, so try his lead district office at (610) 434-1444. If that’s busy, try his other offices.
You will likely be told that he won’t vote for something bad, but send a polite warning. If you live in an area where Toomey will need help in 2016, say it. If you previously volunteered, say it.
This doesn’t mean to get angry with Toomey because we don’t know what he has been doing, but it is the time to remind him that we voted him in to stand up for our rights.
Another media report notes that Toomey “rushed past” reporters asking for comment. They noted, however, that Joe Manchin launched into a full run away from reporters with arms flailing.
UPDATE II: Another Inquirer update says that Manchin & Schumer had a mini press conference after the deadline saying that they do not currently have a deal worked out, but that they are closer than ever. I don’t have any insight into what that means. It could be a way to buy some time. Toomey still won’t answer questions.
UPDATE III: Well, now we get the official confirmation that Pat Toomey is helping to write a gun control bill:
Toomey spox: “Senators Toomey and Manchin continue to work on final details but they appear close to a deal.”
There’s nothing on what deal he’s putting together, but Pennsylvania voters need to make every single phone in every single office ring loud and clear tomorrow. Every office that allows voicemails should have a completely full box by tomorrow morning.
Need a reminder for his numbers?
DC – (202) 224-4254
Allentown – (610) 434-1444
Erie – (814) 453-3010
Harrisburg – (717) 782-3951
Philadelphia – (215) 241-1090 (doesn’t have voicemail set up)
Pittsburgh – (412) 803-3501
Scranton – (570) 941-3540
Johnstown – (814) 266-5970
Bloomberg has a new ad out semi-praising Sen. Pat Toomey based on the media reports that he’s working to push their gun control bill in the Senate. They present a new message that struck a cord for a number of reasons.
Interestingly, MAIG is trying to claim that the current federal bill just makes Pennsylvania’s language into federal law. That, of course, is bullsh*t.
While Pennsylvania law does require handgun sales to go through a dealer for a background check & does restrict some loans of handguns, Sebastian & I are not be felons for loaning guns to carry between one another. That’s what the federal bill does. This is a legitimate issue for us–and presumably other gun owning couples–since, at times, he has opted to carry my Sig (lawfully, since we both have licenses to carry) because it has a smaller profile than his Glock. He has also, at times, wanted to take off his jacket without open carrying, so he has given me his Glock to carry in my purse. If the current federal language were the law, we would both be in prison.
It’s interesting that this ad announcement comes today. Yesterday, a commenter on the PAGunRights.com Facebook page started trying to convince people that the federal bill would just make Pennsylvania laws the law of the land and that gun owners should just trust Joe Manchin to give them a bill we will all like. He tried to make it sound like there was no need to call Sen. Toomey to oppose his potential support the actual federal bill on the table.
I commented to Sebastian that it sounded like a gun control advocate who was not identifying himself as such. He didn’t think I should make that assumption, but something about this guy’s messaging that would discourage gun owners from getting engaged just seemed out of place for me. Typically, the lazy gun owners who don’t care about their rights don’t make the effort to even argue for being lazy. For me, the assumption was pretty much sealed when he took made the argument back to those who argued against him that the federal bill, based on a reading of actual language, that they essentially were advocating to undo the entire Pennsylvania law. (Since that’s not even on the table, there was just no need to feed the trolling. He was trying to derail a discussion of actual federal language.)
Anyway, with this new ad that has this commenter’s exact same Pennsylvania-themed message, I decided to Google his name. Turns out that he’s a co-founder of a new anti-gun group in his city that is promoting MAIG-funded efforts in Pennsylvania. Of course, he never disclosed such affiliations when he was trying to tell gun owners to cool off their activism. Isn’t that just convenient?
I do find it interesting that Bloomberg’s allies are now trying to infiltrate pro-gun groups online in an effort to convince gun owners that there’s nothing to worry about and no reason at all to call lawmakers. I think they are tired of the fact that we’re not just going down quietly.
I guess there’s good news and bad news to being a Pennsylvania gun owner. The good news is that there’s little interest in pushing gun control at the state level by current leadership. The bad news is that our federal lawmakers didn’t get this message.
I never really know what to tell people about these kinds of stories. On one hand, many of the points in favor of Sen. Pat Toomey working with Joe Manchin for some kind of background check bill are valid. He’s a Senator who has to run in a blue state during the next presidential election when turnout among Democrats will be much, much higher. On the other hand, it’s not well sourced and may have easily been dropped by anti-gun forces just because Toomey’s office didn’t hang up on them. Or, it could be something in the middle where he’s talking to them, but pointing out some absolutely fundamental objections that doesn’t mean he’ll actually try to push whatever language they want to push.
Add in the fact that Bloomberg is targeting Toomey in his attack ads and OFA has been targeting GOP lawmakers in the Philadelphia suburbs who have perpetually tight races, and it’s a constant reminder for people to call their lawmakers.
Then, today I was getting pushback from someone who was advocating that gun owners not call their Senators just because he’s confident that the eventual bill won’t have any of the concerns raised by gun owners so far. I argued that those concerns were based on actual language of the bill, not talking points. Yet, he continued to tell people to sit back and just trust our lawmakers. I am still pondering if it’s an American Hunters & Shooters-style infiltrator trying to convince gun owners to lay off the pressure since we’ve managed to hold the feet of our lawmakers to the proverbial fire for this long.
I’m curious if others who live in states that aren’t under immediate local threat are feeling this same kind of frustration in mobilizing federal action.
They are banning guns in parks and city owned public property. Obviously, this is illegal under Pennsylvania’s preemption law, but since there’s no cost to violating preemption, they routinely do it. Unfortunately, this also shows how little regard Philadelphia has for its police officers, who would be open to civil rights suits for enforcing this ordinance, given that preemption is well-established in the Courts. Any officer enforcing this law is open to being personally sued, and that suit can reach up the chain of command all the way to Nutter. Pennsylvania has a bill pending that would give teeth to the preemption statute, but so far it hasn’t moved.
It’s just such flagrant disrespect, especially to a crowd of seemingly older folks who he probably views as too passive to actually challenge his fact-challenged anti-gun rant.
More importantly, gun rights in Pennsylvania has been sustained on the backs of many pro-gun, rural Democrats, which are becoming more and more an endangered species here. Short term, this has helped the GOP take control of our House, retain control of our Senate, and Governor’s mansion, even in a time of Democratic ascendency at the national level. But we are still a state in flux. The GOPs hold is tenuous, and the Democrats are increasingly abandoning gun rights here. With more and more people relocating here from New Jersey and New York in the eastern part of the state, and with the rapid depopulation in the western part of the state, it’s not a great place for gunnies to move to if you don’t plan on fighting. In the next 20 years, Pennsylvania could go either way. It depends greatly on how much gun owners here plan on fighting.
Some Pennsylvania activists are trying to drum up opposition to a local effort to promote more gun control at the federal level. Lancaster’s City Council is expected to vote on Tuesday to support MAIG & all of their gun control efforts.
A fellow activist shared the email addresses for any Lancaster residents who can’t make it to the meeting to oppose this resolution:
Louise B. Williams, President – LBWilliams1@aol.com
John E. Graupera – jeg114@gmail.com
James D. Reichenbach – jamesreichenbach@comcast.net
Tim J. Roschel – Troschel@aol.com
Todd E. Smith – Tesmith1111@yahoo.com
Jose E. Urdametz – Jurdaneta@urdaneta.net
Barbara J. Wilson – bwilson.citycouncil@gmail.com
The article notes that the resolution is expected to pass. Regardless, it might be worth reminding these council members that municipal elections are this year. An outcry might just make some hesitate.
