I don’t really believe that gun control as “the” solution is on its way out the door anytime soon, but one MAIG mayor seems to have found a different inanimate object to blame on his city’s lower quality of life – fireworks.
In Pennsylvania, residents can’t buy the good fireworks. But non-residents are free to do so, which attracts quite a few people from New Jersey and New York. The businesses that set up are a great source of at least temporary employment (we have one that operates all year round here), and obviously a source of tax revenue.
Allentown has long banned residents from setting off fireworks, yet the city still issued permits allowing businesses to sell the pyrotechnics.
On Friday, City Council members joined with Mayor Ed Pawlowski to silence that mixed message with an ordinance that would end the permits and ban the sale of fireworks throughout the city. …
“If they can’t be used here, there is no reason to offer them here,” Pawlowski said. “We don’t need out-of-town fly-by-night operators setting up shops that reduce our quality of life in the city.”
Clearly, these devices which are not legal to use in the city are responsible for all of the problems in Allentown. Just by banning these damn stores, Allentown will increase their quality of life – except for those jobs and tax revenue, not that either one of those things is needed in the Great Recession.
It shouldn’t be surprising that a MAIG partner organization in Pennsylvania is pushing a similar ban on gun stores in their legislative questionnaire this year.
Question on the legislative questionnaire you linked to above.
What does “Ban Gun Ownership w/out criminal conviction” mean?
It sounds like you would have to be a convicted criminal to own a gun, as I assume w/out is short for without?
I’m confused……..
It means they could ban people who have never been convicted of a crime from owning guns.
The other side likes to call it “terror gap,” meaning people who are supposedly on the no fly list shouldn’t be allowed to own firearms, despite the fact that they might not have actually done anything wrong. There’s no way to get off the list, and it’s not based on any kind of actual criminal activity.
In Pennsylvania, the current administration did label the Second Amendment rally as a suspicious event for potential terrorists, so you can see where this line of thinking leads. Suddenly attending political rallies could get you labeled, and there’s no recourse under the Brady/CeaseFire model.