Because there isn’t EXCEPTIONALLY MAJOR OMG-HIT THE PANIC BUTTON gun news hitting every single day in Pennsylvania, I will often post about general political engagement opportunities that are non-gunnie specific on PAGunRights.com. Obviously, most people are not single issue voters. But even when they are, there’s no reason we shouldn’t be engaged with politicians in the same way as other citizens. This last week, it just happened that three “filler” stories just happened to line up to create the perfect example of how gun owners can stand out with lawmakers from the comfort of their couches.
First, I posted the social media homes of all of the candidates. I follow all of them, and I suggest that anyone who wants to stay up-to-date on what the candidates are doing should do the same – at least until the primary election weeds it down to two candidates. (For example, Sen. Tony Williams was saying he could find a way to respect the Second Amendment while trying to get illegal guns off the street. That’s great except that his proposal involves making our carry permits worthless…) On Twitter, you can sometimes even get them to respond when you argue back or cheer them on.
Then, I found out that NUGUN managed to engage his local lawmaker on Castle Doctrine and get him on the record through an online townhall that he found out about via new media. Questions for the townhall were submitted in advance and via email during the event. How wonderfully convenient to do that before the big rally in Harrisburg this month! It now means that NUGUN doesn’t really need to spend much time in Rep. DePasquale’s office other than to introduce himself & thank him for his support. He can now spend more time on other things during the rally.
Finally, the Morning Call‘s John Micek announced a series of live lunchtime chats with all six gubernatorial candidates over the next couple of weeks. If you’ve got a computer and internet access near lunchtime on Monday, you can tune in to ask Rep. Sam Rohrer questions. On Wednesday, you can do the same for Attorney General Tom Corbett. If you decide to ask any gun- or hunting-related questions, let us know either in the comments or via Twitter @PAGunRights or @bitterb. Actually, even if you plan to tune in to ask non-gun questions, feel free to chime in through the comments. I’d be curious to find out if any readers are going to step up their political engagement on any issue with this opportunity.
(On a completely personal note, I probably will tune in, but I doubt I’ll ask anything. I’m pretty up-to-date on most of the issues because I follow this stuff so closely. For my personal preferences, I’ll probably vote for Rohrer in May as a protest vote, volunteer for Corbett between May and November, and cheer for Jack Wagner on the Democratic side in May. The latter is because he’s by far the least problematic for gun owners. He has given a squishy answer on a gun ban question before, but it was squishy enough that he could probably be convinced to change his mind and would not be likely to make it a priority if he managed to win. The other Democratic candidates were all solidly in the “end preemption” and basically tear down anything pro-gun about Pennsylvania category.)