I was planning to be at the rally today in Harrisburg, but a stomach bug ruined those plans. I hope this year’s rally is a success, because if there’s any year we need to be successful it’s this one. Thanks to all those who turned out. I am not always a fan of the annual rally as a tactic, but this year turning out is important, since we have Republicans getting soft on us. I shall hopefully be recovered soon, in which case I will return to blogging.
Hope the Rally is Going Well
I got sick and cannot make the rally, but here’s hoping it’s successful this year …
Lines out the door, fire Marshall/ security stopped more people from coming in because the rotunda was over capacity.
I wanted to go as well, but had to work. I hope its going well.
Welp… When they go SOFT we go HARD.
Relevant thread (with pictures/movies) on PAFOA: http://forum.pafoa.org/showthread.php?t=331756&page=48
And Demanding Mommies appears to have rounded up 40 people for a counter-protest at the end. I guess Bloomy wasn’t paying for buses or providing box lunches for today.
Hope you guys can forgive an old codger for reminiscing: In 1994 we had 10,000 gun owners at a “gun owners rally” at the capitol in Harrisburg. It was part of the “Republican Revolution” of that year. “Gun Owners Rallies” have been a Republican campaign staple in PA ever since.
While 10,000 of us were posturing/deluding ourselves outside, our legislators were (possibly literally) inside crafting the gun control legislation that would become Act 17 of 1995, which the NRA helpfully dubbed “The Sportsmens Omnibus Anti-Crime Bill.”
You’ll have to forgive my nervousness; the bigger the Harrisburg rally, the more imminent I fear new, bipartisan gun control restrictions will be. Gun owners if anything appear to remain suckers for anti-crime, anti-boogeyman legislation, and the more of them that jump on those bandwagons, the better for the gun-grabbers. I guess the bigger the charade, the more real it appears to gun owners.
Republicans got what they wanted in November 1994, and then were willing to risk a charade in the spring of 1995, an off-year. It worked famously for them, then, and only us old farts remember it, now.
It was certainly the largest of the recent indoor gatherings, with some good speakers. I had the opportunity to speak with a few legislators afterwards, including one from Southern Chester County who, while being solidly 2A, feels his constituents are turning blue, including 1/3 of those that claim to be R. It made me realize it’s just as important to thank those legislators that support our cause as it is to convert those fence sitters. All in all, a day well spent!
How do you feel about the 2nd Amendment situation going forward after the 2018 Elections? Your Democrat Governor, Tom Wolf, wants a “NY SAFE Act” style law passed. If the Democrats take PA in 2018, you guys will have worse than what the Democrats are showing their hand for.
There’s always been a decent constituency in the GOP for gun control in the Philadelphia Burbs. His problem is the burbs are expanding out that far, and people are taking their political attitudes with them.
The Republican Party had such a lock on Chester County that from the end of the Civil War up until very recently, that a lot of liberal minded folks registered Republican just to be able to vote in the primary, which were the election. That’s all changed in the past 20 years, and the burbs are trending blue.