The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …
For those of you in Pennsylvania, today the anti-gunners are coming after concealed carry reciprocity once again. They have put off the vote over and over again since they can’t quite scrape together enough. If this really comes up, it likely means they have the votes or they are close enough that they think they can swing it.
You know what to do. Contact information is here.
One problem with LTC’s in Pennsylvania is that how much they cost depends on what county you’re in, despite the fact that the fees for licenses are supposed to be set by law. Such is the problem now cropping up in Lehigh County:
Lehigh County officials are scrambling to figure out if Sheriff Ron Rossi’s office has been illegally overcharging gun owners for licenses to carry concealed firearms.
The sheriff’s office sent legislation to the county commissioners this week asking for the fee to be increased from $25 — the amount set by state law — to $38. While other counties also charge more than $25 for such licenses, Rossi’s staff began charging the higher fee years ago without legislative approval, spurring a slew of questions and criticism at this week’s commissioners’ meeting.
Commissioner Andy Roman said the county may have “a serious issue here” and called for an audit of the program as well as a legal review to see if people who’ve paid $38 for the licenses are entitled to $13 refunds.
Many sheriffs charge extra for a credit card style license that goes beyond what the state requires. I have no problem with this and hope sheriffs keep doing it, because the result of not pursuing this issue properly is going to be all of us having to carry paper licenses that just aren’t going to last for five years, or fit conveniently in a wallet. I do think the sheriffs need to inform applicants that the paper options is available at the state mandated price, however, and many are negligent with that.
But a lot of the fee variance isn’t because of issuing credit card style LTCs, it’s due to varying interpretations of the Sheriff Fee Act. The UFA does not allow for any fee to be charged “other than that provided by this subsection or the Sheriff Fee Act may be assessed by the sheriff for the performance of any background check made pursuant to this act.” While in the previous section, the 5 dollar fee allowed by the Sheriff Fee Act is stipulated, the Act also allows for the following:
In addition to fees provided for in this act, the sheriff shall be paid costs, charges and expenses incident to the performance of an act required by court, order, statute, rule or regulation including, but not limited to, printing costs, publication costs, services of experts, watchmen, postage and mileage, which shall be costs to be paid by the plaintiff, petitioner or person requiring them to be incurred.
That’s pretty broad, and open to interpretation by the Sheriffs, depending on what they want to charge for things. Really, until we get a legislative fix clarifying the intent, the truth us the Sheriffs can legally charge more for a permit than 25 dollars, provided there can be some kind of reasonable relation to the fee and a service (they probably couldn’t, for instance, drive your LTC application around to rack up mileage charges under the Act). I have little doubt that the legislature intended this to be a specific price, but until they reference that specific section of the SFA, this is the situation. The fix for this is likely going to need to come from the legislature.
News came yesterday from Kim Stolfer of Firearms Owners Against Crime that Mayor Bill Goldsworthy of West Pittston, PA has resigned from the group, thanks to the work of a handful of dedicated FOAC activists. It doesn’t take much to make a difference. Sometimes it can just be a matter of explaining to your mayor what MAIG has been up to. By now we have clear and convincing evidence they are the same tired agenda slickly repackaged as an anti-crime measure.
The Lentz bill, HB 2536, to weaken PA reciprocity, was scheduled for a vote today, but has once again been pulled from the agenda. I’m guessing because Lentz still doesn’t have the votes. Keep the pressure on.
The Democrats new choice to take the Pennsylvania chair has an interesting name, that is hopefully prognostic, given the openly gun control supporting folks running on the Dem ticket in the state wide races this year. But we’re happy the MAIG mayor lost her bid for the position.
We have no idea where Jim Burn stands on the Second Amendment, but we’re hopeful being from Allegheny County, he does not follow the current trend of going against us.
Sebastian noted that our Democratic nominee for governor is blaming the Republican candidate for a non-loophole that he declares to independently be a loophole – reciprocity. Unfortunately, he kind of got some big freakin’ facts wrong – but as any internet commentator knows, that won’t stop a blowhard from beating his chest indignantly.
First, there’s the fact that Onorato is specifically blaming Corbett for the Florida reciprocity agreement. Which is funny because the Florida reciprocity agreement was signed in 2001 – before Corbett took office in 2005.
Second, there’s the fact that under the law, the Attorney General actually has an affirmative duty to sign the agreements. So it doesn’t matter who is in the Attorney General’s office, they are supposed to seek out reciprocity opportunities with other states. The laws for issuance of the other states are all at least as strict as ours – and Florida actually has more requirements to obtain a license than Pennsylvania. So if they can do away with the Florida agreement, the anti-gun folks will just pick another state to target. And it won’t be long before all of our concealed carry agreements are gone.
In Pennsylvania, we defeated one official MAIG mayor in his Democratic primary. And yes, guns were an issue. He took major hits and lost votes when NRA endorsed his opponent and highlighted his anti-gun group membership. (I know because I talked to some of those Democrats while working a gun show not too far from the district a couple of weeks ago.)
Unfortunately, we’ve still got at least one more on the ballot for November to defeat. And yesterday we learned that a Bloomberg fangirl of a mayor may end up leading the entire Democratic Party.
As we noted yesterday, Pennsylvania Democrats meet in Camp Hill tonight to kick off two days of meetings that will culminate in the election of a new chairperson — possibly York Mayor Kim Bracey — on Saturday morning.
York has produced a few vehemently anti-gun politicians, and Kim Bracey is apparently one of them since she joined forces with the Mayors Against Guns coalition.
The fact is that MAIG is a serious threat to gun rights. The microstamping law they were pushing in New York recently was so outrageous that it was a defacto ban on semi-automatic handguns. That’s in no way a mainstream viewpoint, and we need to get those politicians out of all offices.
It remains to be seen how she would wield her influence over any pro-gun Democrats who want to run for office. But if you’re a Pennsylvania Democrat, I’d be raising a bit of hell over this with your county party leaders.
They aren’t happy Lentz’s reciprocity weakening bill is being held up:
When it comes to firearms, some people refuse to face facts.
Blindly invoking the Second Amendment, written almost 235 years ago when militias were needed to defend a fledgling nation, they decry any effort to stem the flow of guns to the general public.
Even spurning attempts at compromise, they grouse at any hint of gun control.
How would the Delco Times feel if we said the First Amendment’s right to freedom of the press was antiquated, written almost 235 years ago when we needed a formal press establishment? It seems if it’s there, we ought to respect it, and last I checked the Times didn’t need a license from the state before it had permission to exercise its right. The editorial that follows is completely one sided. I know it’s an editorial, but they sought out quotes from proponents,and their quote from someone on our side was a throw away, meaningless one liner. There was no attempt to convey our concerns about the abuses of Philadelphia’s discretion in issuing and revoking Licenses to Carry. You want to agree that it’s still a smart measure, fine, but don’t give our opponents views credence without listening to us. This is why the dead tree media is going down the toilet.
I see the Brady Campaign is jumping on the narrative that the Supreme Court, by refusing to take an appeal, based entirely on the standing issue, rather than the merits, has upheld Philadelphia’s Lost and Stolen ordinance. I have to admit that their ability to shape public opinion and perception through the use of these kinds of distortions in the media is second to none among advocacy groups.
I can promise you the MAIG/Brady lackey in Pennsylvania, Max Nachemann, will only be too happy to bring this narrative to every Borough, City and Township counsel when gun owners try to say the ordinances he’s pushing are illegal under Pennsylvania’s preemption law. A pity none of it will actually be true. The hope is that no one will bother to look hard enough. Sadly, often they don’t.
Chambered Round, who is in a position to know, notes that the vote has been pushed off another week:
This is starting to look more and more like a diversion tactic to keep focus off of HB40 (Castle Doctrine/Stand Your Ground) in the hopes that bill will, once again, die in committee.
Pennsylvanians, aside from fighting back HB2536, make sure to keep up the pressure on HB40! Contact the members of the House Appropriations Committee, especially the office of Chairman Dwight Evans, and ask them “Where’s the vote on HB40?”
The strategy would seem to be to wear us out and spread us thin in the hopes of running out the clock for HB40, the Castle Doctrine bill.
UPDATE: From Lentz himself:
We are going to hold the bill for a week to see if we can come up with a solution that allows us to keep the permit process local and still prevent known drug dealers from relying on a loophole to get an out of state permit as a get out of jail free card but not interfere in any way with law abiding citizens rights.
More later.