The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …
State Rep Sam Rohrer is asking Pennsylvania residents to sign his petition to oppose any new gun control laws in the Commonwealth. I would ask everyone to do so, if you are from Pennsylvania.
Plus, if my family is to be believed, this guy is a relative of mine. I don’t know him from Adam, but according to them, anyone with a name derived from “Rohr” is somehow related. Good to see I’m not the only gun nut in my “family”.
Berks County is close to Philadelphia, but does not border it. The County Seat is Reading.  But they have a Sheriff who, unlike John Street and Ed Rendell, can face reality:
Berks County Sheriff Barry J. Jozwiak asked a panel of state lawmakers in Reading on Thursday to shoot down any legislation that would limit handgun purchases, claiming it would not curb crime or gun violence.
That had to have given the Philadelphia pols, and Mayor McMahon a heart attack. But it gets better:
Jozwiak, a Republican, said he opposed a bill that would limit people to buying one handgun per month.
Instead of passing new gun laws, Jozwiak said, police and judges should enforce existing laws.
“Gun control does not reduce crime,†Jozwiak said. “In fact, criminals prefer their victims to be unarmed.â€
Jozwiak even criticized a proposal that would require gun owners to notify police if their handguns were lost or stolen.
Supporters believe that would reduce instances of people buying guns, turning them over to criminals and then claiming that the gun was lost or stolen.
Jozwiak said such a law would punish honest, law-abiding gun owners who didn’t realize that their guns were missing.
Sheriff Jozwiak isn’t alone:
State Rep. Jim Cox, a Spring Township Republican, said he would not support the one-handgun-per-month legislation because it chips away at gun owners’ rights and could lead to more drastic restrictions.
“I want people to have the sheer, unadulterated ability to defend themselves,†Cox said. “If they want to go out and buy 20 weapons to protect themselves because there has been a crime wave in their neighborhood, I don’t want to restrict them.â€
Why not? You know the criminals don’t have any problems doing the same.  I’m glad to see once you get out of The City, politicians start having more sense. The City of Philadelphia continues to make guns the scapegoats for their crime epidemic, rather than, you know, criminals.
At least I might, according to the State of California:
Thomas Lee McKiernan, who was arrested earlier this month when his house caught fire and exposed his arsenal to authorities, remains in jail awaiting a sentence that could range from probation and psychological counseling to five years in prison.
The charge? Possession of an illegal assault weapon, which would be legal in just about every other state. So it looks like all the service rifle competitors who go to Camp Perry each year are in need of some serious psychological counseling.
Hat Tip: Dave Hardy
I noticed that neither of my senators have signed on to this bill. I will have to write both of them to make sure it stays that way. In the mean time, I’ve sent this to Senator Hutchinson:
Dear Senator Hutchinson,
I am not a resident of Texas, but I believe your introduction of S.1001, to repeal the Washington D.C. gun ban, raises some issues of national impact with respect to the effect it could have on the Parker vs. DC case, that will likely come before the Supreme Court of the United States.
I do want to thank you for your support of our second amendment rights, and I appreciate the sentiment that went into your introduction of this bill, but I don’t want Congress’ repealing of the Washington DC gun ban to remove standing for the Parker plaintiffs, and render the case moot.
The time has come for the Supreme Court to speak on the second amendment. Many of us who are advocates for gun rights and the second amendment believe Parker is the case that has the best change of favorable review from The Court. While I appreciate the sentiment displayed in S.1001, I sincerely hope this bill will not advance until Supreme Court has had a chance to make a definitive ruling on the Washington D.C. gun ban.
Sincerely,
[Sebastian]
Langhorne, PA
I will e-mail something along those lines to my senators before the end of the day. I will also go bark up the NRA’s tree a bit to make sure they know I don’t want them screwing up the Parker case either. A lot of noise about getting rid of the D.C. gun ban coming from Congress will do us a huge favor when it comes time for court review, but in no way do we actually want anything like this to pass.
Ed Rendell is crapping all over Keystone State gun collectors again:
Speaking on a day when Philadelphia recorded its third gun killing in 24 hours, Rendell said that if lawmakers’ terms were limited, they might be less fearful of the gun lobby and more likely to support a long-stalled proposal to limit handgun purchases to one a month.
“That law should be passed,” Rendell said. “No one who is sane and rational would vote against one handgun a month.”
I guess I’m crazy them, because as a collector, this law will affect me. And I still ask “How is this going to help things?”. They’ve been completely unable to demonstrate that this kind of straw purchasing is a major source of crime guns. Straw purchasing is already illegal, and multiple gun sales are tracked by the ATF and County Sheriffs. If we’re not going after these types of gun traffickers now, how is adding an extra law going to help anything?
I should also point out that term limits will ensure that Ed Rendell does not serve a second term as Pennsylvania’s governor. I guess they are useful for something then.
h/t: Jeff Soyer
From Instapundit, we discover that Congressmen’s lives are apparently more valuable than their lowly staffers.
Thompson was booked for carrying a pistol without a license (CPWL) and for possessing unregistered ammunition. According to congressional rules, congressmen and senators, not staff, are allowed to have a gun on federal property.
If I can’t carry a gun on federal property, Congressworms shouldn’t be allowed to either.
Armed Canadian has a good screed on why gun owners need to fight licensing:
Personally, I find the idea of a license to possess a gun to be a bad idea. Solely for the prospect of abuse over time. Licensing a gun owner for the carry of a concealed weapon and licensing a gun owner for mere possession are the same thing to me. Both depend on the benevolence of the government and require absolute care in crafting such licensing rules to ensure they do not get cut off or be used to create a defacto denial of rights in the future.
The first problem with licensing is the tie to competency. Many people proposing such a scheme want owners to show they are competent. Ok, who makes the rules for competency? Who gets to evaluate them? Who has the authority to change them?
Read the whole thing.
The Citizens Committe for the Right to Keep and Bears Arms is calling out the Democrats for their recent vote on DC Voting Rights, which was voted down because of the addition of an amendment that would have repealed the Washington D.C. gun ban:
Congressional Democrats claim at every turn they “support the Secon d Amendment,†but the truth came out Thursday when they pulled a coveted District of Columbia voting rights bill because of an amendment that would have ended the long-standing handgun ban.
“This shows the true colors of the Democrat leadership,†Alan M. Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms stated. “It should have been easy for the Democrat caucus to agree to the Republican-sponsored amendment, because of the recent federal appeals court ruling that declared the handgun ban unconstitutional under the Second Amendment.
“Instead,†Gottlieb said, “Democrats proved once again that all their avowed support for the Second Amendment is nothing but empty rhetoric. House Democrats had a chance to stand up and be counted, but instead they ran for cover, afraid to have a recorded vote prove that, as a party and as individuals, they remain as anti-gun as ever.â€
I can’t honestly say I’m all that displeased with the outcome, to be honest, because it would have removed standing for the Parker plaintiffs if they go before The Supreme Court. But this move was purely political: to get the Democrats on record as being in favor of handgun bans, so much so that they were willing to sacrifice a coveted bill in maintain it. The politics of this is pretty smart for the Republicans, as polls show that most Americans do not favor making handguns illegal. This puts the Democrats on record as being pretty extreme on the gun issue when compared to most Americans.
But the Democrats could be playing it smart too, in a way. Parker is a win-win case for them, and I could see that they might think twice before they would derail it.
If Parker prevails, it will essentially give the Democrats the political cover they need to back further away from gun control as one of their issues. The Democrats seem to have accepted that this issue has been a killer for them in national elections, and is in no large part responsible for them being reduced to strips along the Northeast Corridor, parts of the Midwest around Chicago, and the West Coast. In 2006, they won on the backs of some pretty pro-gun Democrats like Jim Webb, Bob Casey, John Tester, and the like. Parker changes the political landscape a bit, and might give some politicians with less then stellar records on guns, to back away from the issue without making it look like flip-flopping.
If Parker loses, then the Supreme Court would be emboldening anti-gun forces within the Democratic Party, and offering political cover for some more moderate Democrats to move more to the anti-second amendment position. The folks in Congress like Carolyn McCarthy and Charles Schumer would love to have a Supreme Court ruling that definitively said that the second amendment is no obstacle to gun control in order to beat pro-gun or moderately pro-gun democrats over the head with.
The real losers in the Parker case would be the Republicans, who would not like to see the gun constituency split between the parties. We’ve been a good voting block for the Republicans, so I can see why they’d want to get this issue away from the courts and back into the legislative arena where it can help them more. If gun owners feel secure in their gun rights, they might just be tempted to vote Democrat. If we go down to defeat in Parker, it could convince a lot of gun owners that the system is stacked against them, and stop participating in political activism altogether.
I think looking carefully at each parties interest can explain the vote on the issue.  I don’t think it means the Democrats will head back to their gun control roots; they will stay away from the issue until after the 2008 elections. Both parties are using this particular vote as part of a larger political game, and getting rid of the DC gun ban at this point isn’t in the Democrats political interests, even if a lot of party members would like to move away from an anti-gun position.
Of course, I could be wrong about this, and the Democrats are just being stupid.
[UPDATE: It should be noted that we have been deceived by Congressman Murphy in the intervening years, as he signed onto the semi-automatic ban I wrote to him in reference to below. See Congressman Murphy’s Anti-Gun record here.]
I had been wondering what my new Congress Critter’s stance on the gun issue was. I had planned to write about HR 1022 shortly, but hadn’t completed my thoughts yet. I was quite pleased when perusing the Pennsylvania Firearms Owners Association to find a copy of a letter received from Congressman Patrick Murphy on the same subject. I’ll post the good bit:
Thank you for contacting me in support of maintaining the rights of gun owners. As you probably know, I personally hold a concealed-carry permit and I am a strong supporter of upholding the 2nd amendment. You can rest assured that when legislation involving gun-owner rights comes up before Congress, I will keep your thoughts in mind.
A Democratic Congressman who admits he holds a PA LTC? Congressman Murphy has overcome a big hurdle toward getting my vote. If the Republicans run a bonehead, as they are wont to do, there’s a strong likelihood I’ll be in his court come election day.
A commenter mentions:
As someone who used to shoot before anything apart from a .22 was banned in my country, I can feel a great deal of sympathy for those whose rights are under attack.
But seriously, a guy spends 30 years making drunken assholes with high capacity firearms running around the woods look legitimate, then suggests that carrying an AK47 around might be resonant with events on TV and you all turn on him.
Seriously, anyone watching this little farce who isn’t attached to Mr Heston’s baby cannon gets a pretty ugly picture of the NRA and shooters of the US. There’s a reason why, when someone wants to depict an incompetent and reckless hunter, it’s always some American in a Davy Crockett hat.
You have a very warped understanding of the American shooting community if you think that’s what hunting in America is all about. Hunting accidents in the US are exceedingly rare, despite the fact that the sports has tens of millions of participants. Same goes for sport shooting. There is nothing irresponsible about hunting with a semi-automatic firearm (no one hunts with a machine gun, an none of us would advocate that) provided the caliber is appropriate for the game. The rifles Zumbo was talking about are military patterned, but they are semi-automatic, and not capable of automatic or burst fire.
And maybe the reason that everything apart from a .22 was banned in your country is because shooters there didn’t take their gun rights seriously enough. Ever stop to think about that?