This one almost flew under my radar screen, but fortunately, David Codrea picked it up before I missed it:
Hoping that the new Democratic state House will be more receptive to gun-control legislation, state Rep. Dwight Evans yesterday said he will reintroduce a series of gun bills that previously failed.“We have 50 new members in the House who are not entrenched, who can listen to reason,” Evans, a Democratic candidate for mayor, said at a City Hall news conference attended by a crowd of state and local leaders.“What we want is common-sense gun policies that can stop the flow of illegal guns on our streets,” said Evans.The package of 13 bills, which he said he’d introduce on Feb. 22, includes proposals to limit gun purchases to one a month, to ban assault weapons statewide and to allow cities to enact their own gun laws.
If the new Democratic house passes any of this shit, you’ll be out so fast your heads will spin. When Evans’ steaming pile of gun control manure came forward last year, culminating in the Committee of the Whole meeting, which I traveled to Harrisburg to attend in September, there was overwhelming opposition to all the measures Evans and his gun control cohorts wanted. Again, Philadelphia politicians are failing to understand that the city has a criminal problem and not a gun problem. Pushing the gun angle is a way to make it look like they are doing something, but it’s a dodge because they have no political courage to actually tell people what the problem is and solve it.I’d really like not to have to travel to Harrisburg again this year, but I will if it becomes necessary. My state rep at the time, who I met in last years session, and was sympathetic to the cause, was unfortunately voted out this fall. My new state rep, who’s part of the new Democratic caucus in the house, got an A rating from the NRA during the campaign, and I will have to write to him to make sure that he lives up to rating. I didn’t vote for Mr. King, but I have nothing against him, and would be willing to become a supporter if he keeps good on his promises.
I don’t see any really strong gun laws passing like the 1994 AWB. You make see some softer stuff get thought. The Blue Dog Dems do not want to have to explain themselves to the mid west folks that put them in office.
I agree with you on the national level that the dems will probably shy away from the gun issue. This is stuff going on at the state level, where gun control issues will probably have an even more uphill battle, since many of these 50 new members that Evans mentions are pro-gun. Even if he got himself 50 new anti-gun members, many of the votes I saw went down overwhelmingly to defeat in September’s Committee of the Whole, where no one actually had to go on record. The idea the Philadelphia Democrats had with the CoW session, was that if the fear of the gun lobby were removed, it would clearly show that there was support for gun control legislation among suburban representatives. That notion was pretty much dispelled. My impression was there was very little support for gun control in the PA legislature.