PA2010.com is reporting that this issue is heating up.
Sestak joins several other Congressmen and high-profile Pennsylvania lawmakers who have called to reinstate the ban, including Gov. Ed Rendell and Congressman Patrick Murphy (D-8).
The push to ban assault weapons has elicited strong reactions from Pennsylvania’s pro-gunners, who believe that the ban is too expansive, containing too many guns to make it reasonable. Sestak’s ban calls to reassess the definition of “semi-automation weapon†to include conversion kits, which are used to convert firearms into semi-automatic weapons, as well as any semiautomatic rifle or pistol that can accept a detachable magazine clip.
It’s bewildering to me that in a county with as many gun clubs as ours has, and who has such a strong contingent of people in it who work in the trades, and other types of skilled blue collar work, typically the type of people who tend to support gun rights, that we’re represented by a leftist Nancy-boy like Murphy. Let us not repeat the mistake, and impose someone like him on the rest of the state.
Here’s a fun exercise wherever a gun rights advocate may live: Go to your county election board and check the political party affiliations of your club’s board of directors. It often explains a lot.
If we couldn’t beat him (Murphy) in 2008 (albeit with a candidate in Manion who had the wrong platform by the time November rolled around), its not going to get any easier to defeat him in 2010.
I think there’s a couple of things to consider in this. Murphy came into office in 2006, which was a particularly bad year for Republicans. He barely eeked by Fitzpatrick. In 2008, you had heavy Obama coattails in the Philadelphia suburbs. 2010 should be, by historical standards, a Republican year. I think 2010 is the time to get Murphy, but that’s not to say I’m confident it will happen. We may not have the candidate. The GOP seems to be more focused on District 6 and 7. But I think if we don’t get Murphy in 2010, he’s going to be our Congressworm for a long time, and that pisses me off.
Pardon me for asking the distracting question…
…but what the heck kind of firearm needs a kit to be converted into semi-auto?
I think they mean converted into a semi-auto rifle covered by the ban, but there wouldn’t be too many semi-autos that wouldn’t be covered. I’m going to guess this would mean you couldn’t take, say, a sporterized AK, and even have the parts to change it into a banned configuration. But sporterized AKs would be illegal under the last assault weapons ban Murphy and Sestak signed up for. It pretty much made 95% of semi-automatic rifles illegal, or 100% of them, depending on how much credit you want to give with the poor wording of the bill.