Good news: We’re finally getting a committee vote on Castle Doctrine here in Pennsylvania tomorrow.
Bad news: The gun un-friendly leader of the House Judiciary Committee realizes how much legislative support it has and is releasing three anti-gun bills at the same time.
Good news: PAFOA has put together an alert that will let you (if you live in Pennsylvania) email and tweet targeted lawmakers on the committee who haven’t expressed their support of Castle Doctrine and/or distanced themselves from the anti-gun bills.
If you haven’t contacted your lawmakers yet, today is the day to do it. Tomorrow is the vote, so make sure they hear your voice today.
Here’s the content of the email I just sent to all of the members of the Judiciary Committee about HB1040/43/44/45. PAFOA’s website was awesome for making this easy to do:
“I am writing to you as an ardent supporter of the INDIVIDUAL’s God-given, natural right to self-defense protected by (not granted by) the US Constitution and mirrored in the Pennsylvania State Constitution. As such, the bottom line up front is that I support passage of HB1040 because I (or any other Pennsylvanian) should be able to feel safe and secure in my own home and know that I am legally able to defend my family and myself when threatened without the unnecessary additional risk of retreating from an unknown assailant or attempting to ascertain their exact motives or armament.
Additionally, I am against passage of HB1043 because in these difficult financial times, I believe that our State should concentrate their funding on catching and prosecuting vicious criminals according to existing law without the creation of extraneous agencies to further dilute our essential law enforcement budget. I also oppose HB1044 because it would destroy pre-emption in Pennsylvania and open the door to various polities creating unknowing criminals out of any law-abiding License to Carry owner, such as myself, who accidentally crossed a jurisdictional line while lawfully carrying a defensive firearm. Further, I am against HB1045 because banning a lawfully owned semiautomatic rifle commonly used for hunting, sport shooting and collecting does nothing to prevent or reduce crime; focus on catching and prosecuting to the fullest extent of the law criminals who commit violent acts with firearms of any type rather than penalizing peaceful citizens who happen to own a specific type of rifle.
Finally, I am offended that HB1040–such an important bill for allowing Pennsylvanians to protect themselves from crime–is being considered at the same time as three unnecessary bills that will do nothing to prevent crime or otherwise make our great State a safer place to live. Please do the right thing on May 25th and move HB1040 along while voting down HB1043, 1044 and 1045.
Please contact me at this email address if you wish to discuss this issue any further with a concerned citizen. Thank you for your time and service to our State.”
That’s great, except you got the key bill number wrong. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
The Castle Doctrine bill is HB 40 while the anti-gun bills are HB 1043, HB 1044, and HB 1045. It looks like HB 1040 is about agricultural grants in another committee.
That said, for anyone else who hasn’t contacted lawmakers, I suggest using this list provided by PAFOA because some members of the committee have already said they are with us. We don’t need to hammer them anymore, and they can focus their time on other things. After the vote, we can thank them. But for now, it’s best to stick with the members who haven’t publicly announced their decisions. Colin, if you used PAFOA’s “email them” link or just the email addresses listed in that particular post, then you directed your email to the right people, even if they might wonder why ag grants are related to gun bans. :)
Dagnabbit! I got carried away with all those 10XX bill numbers I guess. Hopefully they’ll get my intent based on the text (if they or a staffer even takes time to read it).
BTW, I did in fact use the PAFOA’s list of email addresses, and it was very convenient and helpful.
I just re-checked my email, and at least I got HB40 correct in the subject line, which is probably all that they’ll read anyways.
Every one. Only got 2 or 3 machine. The good news is, they were getting a lot of calls. Also, the folks who said they supported HB40 also didn’t support the other 3, except Kathy Mandarino (the person who answered the phone didn’t know what her position was on those 3, but said she supported HB40).
FWIW, the ones who flat out said they supported HB40 and not the other 3 were all Republicans (there were 3 or 4 of them). No Dem’s office said what their positions were.
I’ll keep that in mind in November.
Ugh. That should read “I called every one.”