Category: Pennsylvania

With big names like Beretta leaving Maryland, and the Outdoor Channel leaving Colorado, Glenn Reynolds thinks Tennessee is a great destination. I agree. I can’t think of a better state, honestly. We’ve had some Pennsylvania politicians making gestures to gun manufacturers to come to the Keystone State, but it’s worth noting that our state’s economy is still built on the “blue model”  and remains a business unfriendly state.

More importantly, gun rights in Pennsylvania has been sustained on the backs of many pro-gun, rural Democrats, which are becoming more and more an endangered species here. Short term, this has helped the GOP take control of our House, retain control of our Senate, and Governor’s mansion, even in a time of Democratic ascendency at the national level. But we are still a state in flux. The GOPs hold is tenuous, and the Democrats are increasingly abandoning gun rights here. With more and more people relocating here from New Jersey and New York in the eastern part of the state, and with the rapid depopulation in the western part of the state, it’s not a great place for gunnies to move to if you don’t plan on fighting. In the next 20 years, Pennsylvania could go either way. It depends greatly on how much gun owners here plan on fighting.

Both Jim Geraghty and John Richardson are covering a new, but really not so new claim by gun control advocates:

“If there was a secret-ballot vote it would pass overwhelmingly, because from a substantive point of view most of these senators understand that this is the right thing to do,” said Matt Bennett, a gun-control advocate and senior vice president at Third Way, a centrist think tank. “What’s holding them back is pure politics.”

This novel theory  was floated in Pennsylvania back in 2006.

Anti-gun forces in the Pennsylvania legislature became convinced that if the votes weren’t on the record, gun control would pass handily. They called for the House to meet in a Committee of the Whole, where recorded votes would not be posted, and thus lawmakers would be free to express themselves without fear of the NRA. So how did this particular experiment in one of our 50 laboratories of Democracy go? Utter fail for the gun control folks. The politicians still, even off the record, don’t want anything to do with gun control, because it’s a political loser. As Jim Geraghty noted, this is really a complaint that politicians are held accountable to the public.

I’ve gotten a lot of inquires into Sheriff elections, and a faction of the local gun rights group in Bucks County is very focused on sheriff issues, putting pressure on the local Sheriff Joe “Duke” Donnelly to sign pledges, etc. The focus on Sheriffs, as best I can research, is a legacy from the militia movement in the 90s, and was mostly hatched in states where Sheriffs play a greater role than they do here. I think it’s a huge distraction from the real issues in Pennsylvania.

First, the sheriff is not not imparted with any special constitutional status in our federal system, short of what state constitutions and state law have to say about the office, and that’s going to vary wildly from state-to-state. The only thing special about the office of Sheriff is that it is, in most states, an elected office, whereas the people don’t really have direct say, in most cases, about who ends up Chief of Police, except by proxy through City Counsels and Mayors for local police, or State Legislators and Governors for State Police. I think direct election of law enforcement is actually a good thing in a free society, and think we should do more of it, but that’s a separate issue from Sheriffs. In Pennsylvania, there are two issues with Sheriffs when it comes to guns in Pennsylvania.

One is that they issue permits. Historically (though it’s getting better) some Sheriffs have loved to add their own requirements, overcharge for the permit, or in the case of Philadelphia (who by state law issue through the Philadelphia Police Department rather than Philadelphia Sheriff) engage in all kinds of extralegal jerking around of LTC applicants and holders. That’s an issue to be cognizant of when election time comes around.

The other is that for NFA paperwork, the Pennsylvania Sheriffs are usually considered the CLEO when it comes to sign-off on ATF Form 4s. While ATF will accept local Chiefs’ signatures, Chiefs will often defer to the Sheriff on that matter. If your Sheriff won’t sign off, your only other route is an NFA trust, and there are numerous counties that won’t sign Form 4. In my area, Bucks and Chester are the only two counties I’m aware of that will sign-off. So this is a legitimate consideration.

Beyond those two issues, Sheriffs in Pennsylvania, and Constables, are a legacy from the time when most states had no professional law enforcement. While they are considered sworn officers under Pennsylvania law, the law does not give the office of Sheriff or Constable generalized law enforcement powers, such as those exercised by the State Police or your local police department. The Sheriff only has the power to enforce edicts of the Commonwealth Courts. Traditionally, before the age of professional law enforcement, if a Sheriff needed assistance to serve a warrant or bring someone before the Courts for trial, he would deputize local militia. Sheriffs still have the power in Pennsylvania, but I’m not aware it’s ever been used in modern times.

In short, when it comes to enforcement of unconstitutional federal laws, you’re barking up the wrong tree if you’re harassing your Sheriff. That’s a matter to take up within your local communities and with your local police chief, and with the State Police through state representatives, Senators, and the Governor’s office. Local police cannot be commandeered to enforce federal law under the anti-commandeering doctrine, as a matter of already established case law. Any enforcement of federal law by local authorities is purely voluntary on their part, and they cannot legally be forced to cooperate in any federal gun control scheme. But regardless of whether that’s the case or not, it’s not something Sheriffs have anything to do with in Pennsylvania.

Casey sailed into office based on Pennsylvanians tiring of Santorum, name recognition as the son of a former Governor, and a conservative position on guns and abortion. I am ashamed to admit I voted for Bob Casey in 2006, because Santorum’s social conservatism became too much for me to stomach. I appreciated Santorum’s position on guns, and thought he was the better candidate on that issue, but given that Casey answered an A questionnaire, I was willing to vote more on my non-gun issues that had developed with Santorum. If I had known Casey would abandon support for Second Amendment rights, I never would have voted for him.

Casey has turned out to be quite a disappointment. He’s a horrible campaigner, and has difficulty managing campaigns. He won re-election this time largely because of a bad schism within the GOP about who ought to be the leading candidate, a poor eventual choice of candidate, and the general implosion of the 2012 Republican Senatorial Campaign, thanks to the likes of Todd Akin. I believe Casey could be beaten handily by the right Republican candidate. He won by being “Not Rick Santorum” with name recognition, and won again by the sheer stupidity of the GOP. He did not win because he’s a stellar campaigner. He shouldn’t get so cocky in a state that still has considerably more gun owners than most other blue states.