Snowflakes in Hell

A Pennsylvania State Senator retaliates against the Game Commission after his kid has a run in with a game officer.  Game wardens are law enforcement officers under Pennsylvania law.  They wear uniforms and carry guns.  It is unlawful to have a loaded long gun in a vehicle in Pennsylvania (loaded pistols are fine with a license).  What I definitely would have appreciated from the Senator, is some help repealing this stupid law.  But no, we’ll crap on the game wardens because they messed with my kid who was breaking the law.  Will he jerk the game commission around if I get caught with a loaded rifle in a car?  Yeah, didn’t think so.

According to the Times-Leader, the public range at State Game Lands 91 will be rebuilt and reopened in October.  My county’s range was closed in 2005 as well, and I do hope it can reopen at some point.  The closure of that range was my primary impitus for joining a club.  Even if they reopen the range, I probably won’t shoot there much, but public ranges are important for hunters, casual shooters, and new shooters.

Looks like PGC is going all out on this one, with a covered firing line, baffles, an improved back stop, and a management program to prevent lead contamination.

… but it looks like he keeps his bets, at least.

Four of the people involved in the incident in Dickson City have filed a lawsuit under 42 USC Section 1983 in US District Court.  You can see the document filed here.  Police departments in the Commonwealth need to start training their officers that open carry is a lawful practice except in a city of the first class (where you need a LTCF), and that a gun not having a record of sale is no evidence to seize it.  Dickson City is about to be made an example of why this needs to happen forthwith.

Looks like this case I mentioned the other day was another case of the police seizing a gun because it wasn’t in the state police registry record of sale.  Getting rid of that registry needs to be a top priority of firearms owners in this state.

HB 1845, the omnibus pro-gun bill, has been voted out of the House Senate Judiciary Committee 13-0.  There was an attempt to strip out the emergency concealed carry provision by the anti-domestic violence lobby, because clearly we can’t have women being threatened by their psychotic ex’s able to defend themselves.  Why, if that were the case, we might not need an anti-domestic violence lobby.   They were unsuccessful at removing this provision by a 9-5 vote.   The bill now move to the appropriations committee, then to the floor, then back to the house for concurrence.

Looks like he was stopped illegaly, and had his gun stolen by the Wilkes-Barre police.  I will provide further information as things develop, but for now, it’s looks as if this one is for real.

The media in the DIckson City area is starting to get out Rich Banks’ side of the story in the whole ridiculous Old Country Buffet fiasco with the Dickson City police.  As far as I’m concerned, the only crime going on in that Old Country Buffet was probably their food.

Looks like HB 1845 is going to be up for a vote in the Senate Judiciary Commitee next week.  This includes the provision allowing carrying of firearms into Pennsylvania State Parks, prevents confiscations in the event of a state of emergency, and allows for sheriffs to issue emergency LTCFs for people who’s lives are actively threatened.

Let’s get this onto the floor and up for a vote in the full senate, so that we can get this on Rendell’s desk.

The state senate has put the brakes on the smoking ban.  Rendell’s Prescription for taking away the rights and freedoms away from citizens of Pennsylvania will have to wait.

Apparently a Pennsylvania lawmaker is looking to repeal state preemption of dog breed specific legislation because of one incident in his district.  This is a lot like gun control, where the solution is to punish irresponsible owners, not to try to control the species of dog.

Color me skeptical about this one.  A sawed off shotgun I can believe, since all it takes to get one of those is a regular shotgun and a hacksaw. But an RPG?  We’ve seen this in the media before, and bloggers were able to identify it as an inert tube.  It’s possible, I suppose, that someone had an RPG, but I’m guessing this is another case of some kind of munition looking thing that’s inert.

Bensalem is the next township over from me, but upon cleaning out my attic this weekend from previous owners crap, I didn’t find any fun toys like this.  Bummer.  But had I found an RPG, I would not have endangered any police or first responders.  No, definitely not.  I’m sure I could have found a cooperative junk yard owner, preferably in a secluded area, where such ordnance could be safely and properly disposed of, without endangering anything except perhaps a late model Chevrolet Celebrity.  Or maybe a Ford Escort.

Armed and Safe links to an editorial on the incident and takes it to task.  I would also point out this indication that the Times-Tribune couldn’t even be bothered to crack a dictionary:

The gun-toters don’t seem to understand that not brandishing their weapons in public would not diminish their right while also not intimidating other diners.

Let’s look at the definition of brandish, shall we?  From Merriam-Webster:

Main Entry: ¹bran·dish

Pronunciation: \ˈbran-dish\

Function: transitive verb

Etymology:

Middle English braundisshen, from Anglo-French brandiss-, stem of brandir, from brant, braund sword, of Germanic origin; akin to Old English brand

Date: 14th century

1 : to shake or wave (as a weapon) menacingly
2 : to exhibit in an ostentatious or aggressive manner

If someone views a firearm properly secured in a holster as “aggressive” or “menacing” that’s not my problem, it’s theirs.  The laws of this commonwealth permit the open carrying of a firearm in plain view, or concealed or in a vehicle with a license.  There are 600,000 people in this state with a License to Carry Firearms.  People in Pennsylvania are around armed citizens all the time, and they just don’t realize it.  All these gentlemen did was choose not to hide their firearms.

GunTruth has a pretty detailed piece up over at his blog about an open carry dinner in Pennsylvania that got raided by the Dickson City police.  This kind of thing happened in Virginia too when VCDL started doing this.  I don’t open carry much at all, but it is a legal practice in Pennsylvania, without a license in the rest of the state, and with a license in the City of Philadelphia.  I have met the guy who was arrested in this, and while he is someone who will stand up for his rights and the law, he’s definitely not brash, abrasive, or rude.

It’s a fact of open carrying that sometimes people will freak out and call the cops, especially in the parts of Pennsylvania that are absorbing a lot of residents from New Jersey and New York, where the practice is illegal.  I think 911 call centers and police departments need to be trained on the fact that the practice is legal, and how to deal with that kind of situation.  VCDL has done a pretty good job of getting that done in Virginia, and I think we will in Pennsylvania too.

UPDATE: I should inform everyone that you’ll see a lot of talk of registration in this thread.  Pennsylvania currently has a defacto registry, as the PA State Police has been computerizing records of sale and putting them into a big database.  The legislature made creating a registry illegal in 1996, but the State Supreme Court ruled that because the database was not comprehensive, it was not a registry.  This isn’t the first time I’ve seen cases where the registry is being treated as a registry of all firearms.  We need to make getting rid of this “registry” our number one priority in Pennsylvania once we’re rid of Fast Eddie.

Joyce has made a $350,000 grant to CeaseFire Pennsylvania:

The Chicago-based Joyce Foundation is granting the organization the money over two years to aid its bid to build a statewide, grass-roots response to gun violence, CeaseFirePA’s executive director Joe Grace said.

That’s big money aimed square at gun owners in Pennsylvania, and Joe Grace has demonstrated that he’s a capable and effective leader of CeaseFire PA.  This isn’t going to stop, and we need to have our A game on.

Read this, and see what he thinks about guns:

The Northampton prosecutor said that the state attorney general does not need legislative approval to require Pennsylvania gun owners to report their missing weapons or to mandate gun merchants to inform their customers that they cannot permit their guns’ use by anyone not legally authorized to possess a firearm. He believes a Pennsylvania statute stating the “attorney general may adopt, after public hearing, such rules and regulations as may be necessary for the enforcement and administration of the Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law (UTPCPL)” gives Mr. Corbett the necessary leeway to impose the aforesaid regulations.

This guy is going to be a disaster for gun rights, and it’s very important that he get nowhere near the Attorney Generals office in Harrisburg.  Pennsylvania is becoming increasingly Democratic, and we don’t stop the tide, we’ll be New York and New Jersey before you know it, and I’ll be a Texan, Tennessean, or Arizonan.

From PA Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs:

The anti-gun folks are using the Philly police officer killing to push their agenda. Some are trying to say that if Philly had been able to enforce their gun laws, the killing wouldn’t have happened. While our sincere sympathy goes out to the officer’s family, we all know that banning the sale of firearms to law-abiding citizens would not have stopped this career criminal from illegally obtaining a weapon.

They attempted to file amendments to SB 1250, The Marriage Act.  Here are some amendments that were filed.  I am told SB 1250 has been tabled, but it shows you that these people aren’t going to give up.  They aren’t going to stop.  They have the media on their side 100%, and they are moving ahead at full steam.

The state has set up a web site to inform people about firearms transfer laws in Pennsylvania.  Dave Markowitz takes the state to task for providing misleading information about what the law actually is.  Handgun and NFA transfers have to be done through an FFL or the County Sheriff’s office.  Long gun transfers between private parties are allowed, provided neither individual is prohibited from possessing a firearm.  Seems the state is leading people to believe all transfers have to go through an FFL.  From Dave:

Guntransfer.org clearly reflects the Philly-centric antigun bias. By fooling people into thinking that private party transfers of any gun are illegal in PA, they are looking to create a paper trail. All gun transfers which go through a licensed dealer first require the transferee to pass a background check conducted in Harrisburg by the Pennsylvania State Police. As you may be aware, a few years ago they were sued for creating an illegal registry of gun owners. As it turned out, the State Police won their case when the court ruled that the records which they were compiling did not meet the statutory definition of an illegal database. Nevertheless, it is still a de facto database of gun owners in Pennsylvania.

Our supreme court ruled that because the database wasn’t all inclusive, that it wasn’t a “registery,” which is prohibited by the Uniform Firearms Act.  I doubt this is a nefarious conspiracy to create a paper trail, but it’s definitely not good that a state agency is spreading false information about state law.  This is something we ought to bring up with Attorney General Corbett.

The Weekly Standard thinks Hillary may have provided John McCain the key to defeating Obama:

In a new Brookings study of Pennsylvania’s political demographics, William Frey and Ruy Teixeira identify this region, centered on Allentown, as key to the state’s political future. If Pennsylvania’s Northeast keeps trending Democratic, the state will become solidly blue. But if a Republican candidate can hold the line or make some modest gains with the region’s white working class voters, the picture looks very different. And as it turns out, the GOP may have a candidate who can do just that in John McCain. As Hillary Clinton’s campaign slow-marches to its unhappy end, she is offering lessons not only for how McCain can defeat Obama–she is pointing towards a possible bright future for the Republican brand.

The Republicans have lost a lot in Pennsylvania, largely due to the Bush version of Republicanism alienating the traditionally Republican Philadelphia suburbs, and making those voters look elsewhere.  That’s probably one reason I’m more sanguine about John McCain than most, is because I think the Republicans desperately need to make some gains in Pennsylvania, and McCain is probably the right kind of guy to appeal to voters in these key areas in the southeast.  It’s not so much that I love the Republican Party, and want it to dominate, but I sit just across the river from a shining example of what one party rule does to a state.  If Pennsylvania shifts solidly Democrat, if Ed Rendell is any indication of what is in long term store for us, we’re in a lot of trouble.  Taxes will keep going up and up, people will keep leaving, and  you can probably kiss Pennsylvania goodbye as a pro-gun state in a generation.  If it takes McCain coattails to reverse that trend, so be it.

HatTip to Instapundit

UPDATE: Check out this graphic in the Inquirer that shows how Obama failed.  It also shows that Ed Rendell had to carry near universal support in the Philadelphia area in order to win.  Obama failed to not only carry overwhelming support in the southeast, he failed to beat Hillary.

The fundamental problem is our definition of reasonableness.  Mine differs greatly from Walter M. Phillips Jr.:

My suggestion would be to introduce a bill requiring both a license and a detailed background investigation before allowing someone to possess or own a handgun.

Currently, there is no requirement in Pennsylvania to obtain a license in order to own a handgun.

That’s correct, because we don’t license fundamental rights.  A background check is already required, and a few minute check on a computer is all it takes; criminal records are computerized.

The current meaningless background check in Pennsylvania, along with the state’s no-license requirement, allows unsavory characters to buy handguns and later sell them on the streets - not just in Philadelphia, but in Reading, York, Scranton, and neighboring states that have more restrictive laws. Ultimately, individuals use them to commit crimes and kill innocent people.

By unsavory character, you mean people who have no criminal record in the State Police’s database, and in the National Crime Information Computer?  Because that’s the background check that’s going to be done for the license too.  The state uses the same system to run Licenses to Carry.  It’s a thorough check.

Someone who has been arrested for multiple robberies, but convicted of none (witnesses might have not shown up, changed their testimony, or been murdered), is not someone who should be allowed to buy one handgun, let alone the 10 he may seek to buy (since there is no one-gun-a-month law in Pennsylvania); neither should the individual who is under investigation by the attorney general for major drug deals (but who never has been convicted of a felony).

We do not deny fundamental rights in this country without due process.  Eliminating due process of a fundmental right is under no one’s definition “reasonable”.

To my knowledge, the NRA has not had its members march on state capitols protesting the passage of license- or detailed-background requirement laws, nor has the NRA brought a court action to declare such laws as violating the Second Amendment. In other words, the NRA seems to have slowly come to the realization that these laws are reasonable.

What crack pipe are you hitting pal?  Try to pass this crap, and you can bet your rosey red buttcheeks that we’re going to march on Harrisburg.

It can hardly be argued that requiring a license to own a handgun is unreasonable or burdensome. After all, a license is required to drive an automobile. Is not a handgun a far more dangerous instrument than an automobile?

Driving an automobile on public roads is not a right.  Keeping a firearm is a right.  And you don’t need a license to buy a car, just to drive one on the public highways.

I think it’s high time we wrote our legislators, and found out exactly what the PCCD is doing with out tax dollars.  I do not take kindly to government appointees advocating positions that are contrary to the constitution and laws of this commonwealth.

John Lott points to some evidence that Obama’s “bitter” comments did him no favors among gun owning Democrats.  Obama learned a hard lesson about Pennsylvania voters: It’s not like Illinois, where he could safely thumb his nose at downstate people from his posh 1.6 million dollar home on the South Side of Chicago, knowing full well they can’t outvote his urban constitutents.  Pennsylvanians can and do outvote Philadelphia.  Politics here is hazardous for the inexperienced, and Obama didn’t have what it takes to navigate the minefield.

So far what they are saying:

Three in 10 Pennsylvania Democratic voters were union members or had one in their household, and they favored Clinton over Obama. Four in 10 had a gun owner in the household, and gun-owning households also went mostly for Clinton.

Bitter enough not to vote for you Barry-O!  Two fold message here: rural Pennsylvanians hate being condescended to, and AHSA’s endorsement isn’t worth elk piss (I don’t know what Elk piss smells like, but I’m guessing pretty bad.)

This is the first time that I can remember people paying so much attention to my state’s primary.  Usually by the time we come around, we’re just reaffirming what the rest of the country has already chosen for us.  In terms of primary politics, Pennsylvania has never mattered.  I’m glad to hear that the gambling industry has Hilly up by 7-10.  I think Obama is pretty much a lock in at this point unless he seriously bombs all the remaining states, which is a possibility.  A Hillary win will drag the fight to the convention, and if Hillary does manage to pull it out, it’ll be because of something shady that’ll piss a lot of Democratic faithful off.  That makes it less likely I have to worry about either of those two being president.

I continue to not believe we elected this guy Governor of Pennsylvania.  I blame suburban voters who think he was a great Mayor of Philadelphia, so he’d surely make a great governor!  He was a lucky mayor of Philadelphia.  The city, like most other cities, benefited from the .com boom and the nationwide drop in crime in the 90s.  But it benefitted to a lesser degree than most other cities, and when the boom turned to bust, Philadelphia’s problems, which Rendell didn’t really fix, came roaring right back, falling on the feet of a corrupt and ineffectual John Street.  Now it’s Mike Nutter’s mess, and while I think he’ll certainly be less corrupt than John Street, the jury’s still out on the ineffectual part.

Hat tip to David Bernstein

A judge has blocked the City of Philadelphia from enforcing its gun control ordinances:

Common Pleas Judge Jane Cutler Greenspan is granting the National Rifle Association’s request Thursday to keep the ordinances from taking effect right away. The NRA argues that Pennsylvania law prevents municipalities from regulating guns.

So, the question is, how far do you want to push this Mayor Nutter and Commissioner Ramsey?  Do we want to risk contempt of court charges in addition to civil rights violations?  Still want to enforce your laws?