King-Thompson is the House version of the Manchin-Toomey compromise. Of the area GOP reps, Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick (PA-08) and Rep. Pat Meehan (PA-07) have already caved to pressure from Bloomberg and CeaseFirePA and signed on as co-sponsors. Â Rep. Jim Gerlach (PA-06), so far, is holding out. Bloomberg is now trying to change that, by using some anti-gun state reps in a “Women’s Roundtable” to discuss gun violence.
It’s worth noting that despite attempts, our ground effort in Fitzpatrick and Meehan’s district is not as strong as it should be for the number of gun owners. It’s much stronger in Gerlach’s district. Politicians respond to incentives, and it’s a lot easier to bring politicians along when “gun rights” is something they see regularly in their districts.
“our ground effort in Fitzpatrick and Meehan’s district is not as strong as it should be for the number of gun owners.”
You know I’m big on ancient history, so forgive the following reflection:
“On the ground” relations with congressmen in Fitzpatrick’s 8th District have almost always been the inverse of what you would expect. In my early days of participation with the “Bucks County Sportsmens Coalition” which was functioning at that time, arch-liberal Democrat Peter Kostmeyer was congressman, and we had the best relationship with him of all congressmen since. Not that he would always see things our way, but, he would contact us to tell us what he was going to do on a gun issue, and tell us why, long before he did it. He may have known we would disagree, but he explained himself. He also never lied. He never voted for something he had said he wouldn’t vote for. For example, he said straight-up he would vote for the Brady Bill, but that he would never support a gun ban of any kind, and he kept his word.
Republican Jim Greenwood may have been the worst. I don’t think he ever saw a piece of anti-gun legislation he didn’t like. And for the most part he told us to go jump. He seemed to think — correctly — that being a Republican was enough for most gun owners to assume he was pro-gun, so there was no need to keep our little group of cranks happy. And, he may have had a point, because when I lit into him in the local media for sending around a campaign mailing in which he styled himself as being to the right of Daniel Boone on gun issues, the NRA called us up and bawled us out, saying to lay off him because now “they were talking to him.” I remember telling them to do what they had to do, but so would we.
Loosely, I’d observe that 8th District RKBA activism was at its best when a Democrat held the seat, and everyone assumed “bad,” and tended to languish when it was held by a Republican, that everyone assumed (wrongly) was “good.”
You mean all that OC stomping in parks isn’t a ground game?