Pennsylvania – Page 60 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Democratic Nominee Onorato Runs Left

Describing rumors of his pro-gun positions as “mischaracterizations,” when Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato declared his candidacy for Governor in Philly this morning, he called for non-specific “common sense” gun control.

I asked a reporter on the scene what exactly a “common sense” gun law was, but he didn’t have any specifics other than a vague reference by Onorato to child locks. However, he did say he would get back to Onorato on it.

It seems rather odd that Onorato is seemingly running left on gun issues, when he said later that these issues won’t really matter in the 2010 election, it will be more about the economy. If he does, it will be at his own political peril. Of course, he might already know that given this tweet from John Micek:

Onorato event in HBG is in front of Colonial-Era Graveyard. Put out an APB to Metaphor Police.

UPDATE: He also specifically mentioned lost-and-stolen, a law that would turn the legal system upside down for gun owners. We would have to prove our innocence rather than law enforcement proving that we did anything wrong.

Got to Get Down to MAIGTown

The Mayor of Darby, PA, the town I have the unfortunate requirement to name as my place of birth on every 4473, is a member of MAIG. One of the Darby borough council members is under investigation for straw purchasing. If Mayor Helen Thomas is really interested in cracking down on illegal guns, maybe she needed to start with her own Borough Council.

A Good Day at the Gun Show

There was a gun show in Lebanon, PA today, not too far from where my dad lives, so we decided to go. I was looking for .22LR, small rifle primers, and if the hunting was good, an AR-15 lower receiver. I like a show where I can find everything I’m looking for. Picked up two bricks of 22, which should keep us shooting for a few months. Same vendor had small rifle primers. I also picked up this:

It will eventually become the lower to fit the 6.8 SPC upper I have which has never had its own lower. I had to fill out the Pennsylvania State Police form that is normally reserved for pistols. A few months ago the PSP made a determination that because a lower can be made into a pistol, it’s a pistol, and is subject to the record of sale requirements, meaning it’s in the State Police registry. Even if I make it into a rifle, does this mean that I can’t transfer it without going through an FFL? Does it mean I need an LTC to carry it? Personally, I don’t think the State Police have any statutory authority to make this requirement at all, if you look at the UFA definition of a “firearm”:

“Firearm.” Any pistol or revolver with a barrel length less than 15 inches, any shotgun with a barrel length less than 18 inches or any rifle with a barrel length less than 16 inches, or any pistol, revolver, rifle or shotgun with an overall length of less than 26 inches. The barrel length of a firearm shall be determined by measuring from the muzzle of the barrel to the face of the closed action, bolt or cylinder, whichever is applicable.

Except in its form, it’s not a pistol, rifle, revolver or shotgun, because it has no barrel. My assertion is that it is a “firearm” under the actual definition, which subjects it to the PICS check, but is not a “firearm” under the UFA definition, which subjects it to the reporting requirement, and requires an LTC to carry. For some reason, the PSP changed their mind. Probably because we have an anti-gun PSP commissioner, appointed by our anti-gun governor.

State Budget Passes House

Capitol Ideas is reporting that the Pennsylvania State Budget has passed the house. One thing of note for our issue:

But Democratic leaders balked after getting an earful from rank-and-file Democrats earlier in the week. And they moved to drop unpopular proposals to impose the state sales tax on arts and theater tickets, as well as a proposal for a 20 percent levy on small games of chance operated by private clubs and fraternal organizations.

Most shooting clubs that I know of run small games of chance, and would typically qualify as private clubs or fraternal organizations. These are critical fundraising tools for many of those types of organizations, so this might be something we need to get involved with. I will try to report on this further.

BTW, Capitol Ideas has been doing a bang up job of covering the Pennsylvania budget fiasco in Harrisburg. Both on the blog and on Twitter. For those of you not in Pennsylvania, we are the only state without a budget currently. This has been dragging out for weeks, with both sides unable to come up with a deal. Rendell was late delivering the budget to begin with, and has been a constant wrench in the works. At this point I think the Dems just want to pass a budget and move on. The question is whether the Republican controlled Senate will feel so obliged.

Congratulations Bob Mensch!

With 80% of districts reporting, NRA endorsed candidate Bob Mensch has won the 24th Senatorial seat in a landslide victory. We have kept that seat in pro-gun hands. Bob’s district spans both Bitter and my EVC districts, plus a little bit of PA-15. so we couldn’t be more thrilled by this result.

UPDATE: Final tally 66% to 30%, with 3.5% going to the Libertarian. That’s a 36 point landslide!

Local Special Election Today

For those readers who live in Pennsylvania’s 24th Senatorial District, NRA has endorsed Bob Mensch in today’s special election to replace the seat vacated by Senator Rob Wonderling, who resigned to head up the Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce. Be sure to get out to vote. Bitter is up there now helping his campaign with the get out the vote effort. Hopefully we’ll keep that an A-rated seat moving forward. Bucks Right has some interesting information on his opponent. She’s a lifelong hunter, you know?

A Living Constitution & The Right to Bear Arms

The Pennsylvania Constitution is an interesting beast. Â Most of us are well aware of its right to bear arms provision, which is one of the strongest worded for an individual right. That’s what we will examine here, through the various revisions of the Pennsylvania Constitution, and there have been many:

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has been governed by five constitutions between 1776 and 1968. Before that, the province of Pennsylvania was governed for almost a century by four successive constitutions, referred to as The Frame of Government.

The first Frame of Government 1682, also known as Penn’s Charter, was written by William Penn while he was still in England, and was repudiated by Pennsylvania’s Colonial Assembly. In the preface, Penn stated his political philosophy on government: “Any government is free to the people under it … where the laws rule and the people are a party to those laws.”

None of the four Frames of Government that defined Pennsylvania’s colonial Quaker government had any right to bear arms provision. That had its start in the Constitution of 1776:

XIII. That the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the state; and as standing armies in the time of peace are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; And that the military should be kept under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.

In the Constitution of 1790, the right to bear arms provision was changed to:

Sec. 21. That the right of citizens to bear arms, in defence of themselves and the State, shall not be questioned.

The Pennsylvania Constitution would undergo it’s next major revision in 1838, slightly changing the wording by changing “citizens” to “the citizens”:

Section XXI. The right of the citizens to bear arms, in defence of themselves and the State, shall not be questioned.

Move to the Constitution of 1874, you get some punctuation changes:

Section 21. The right of the citizens to bear arms in defence of themselves and the State shall not be questioned.

That language persisted through the Constitution of 1968, which is the current constitution the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania operates under. Pennsylvania has a living constitution, and multiple generations of revisions and conventions have chosen to preserve the right to bear arms as part of it. I would think that to even a living constitutionalist, this has to mean something.

Links Between Brady & MAIG Established.

With yesterday’s announcement that the Pennsylvania State Police Commissioner is working to promote Bloomberg’s MAIG coalition, I decided to a little bit of research on just who reached out to him on behalf of the NYC mayor. Turns out what I found supports the research by Carl in Chicago, but it comes straight from the mouth of Bloomberg’s Pennsylvania staffer.

Max Nacheman is cited as the Pennsylvania Mayors Against Illegal Guns Coordinator, and his background in politics is a page out of the who’s who of gun control advocates. It seemed awfully coincidental that the entire Bloomberg mayor’s group agenda is also supported by the anti-gun Brady Campaign. What is absolutely not coincidental is the connection that Max Nacheman brings between the two groups.

As Bloomberg’s representative for Pennsylvania, Nacheman is responsible for visiting towns and promoting the idea that they should pass illegal local gun ordinances. In May 2009, Max Nacheman spoke at the Lancaster City Council meeting in support of “lost-and-stolen” legislation and revealed the connection between MAIG and the established gun control movement.

Max Nacheman, Philadelphia, stated that he represents a National Coalition of Mayors, of which Mayor Gray is a leader, Mayors Against Illegal Guns and the Brady Campaign Against Gun Violence.

That’s right, Nacheman admitted that in his position with MAIG, he also represents the Brady Bunch and that they both seek to accomplish the same agenda.

Before Nacheman became a spokesman and organizer for both Michael Bloomberg and the Brady Campaign, he came to Pennsylvania as a student at UPenn. While he was there, he happened to study Religion and US Public Policy. Interesting, and just where have we heard of a project that involves religion as a justification for public policy?

Eventually, he started working with the Hillary Clinton campaign for the Democratic nomination for President. Clinton’s support of gun control is long established, though it is unclear if he ever worked specifically on the issue for her campaign. However, once Barack Obama secured the nomination, Nacheman opted to stick around to support anti-gun State Representative candidate Steve Rovner based on reported campaign expenditures. As a candidate, Rovner stuck out to Bucks County gun owners as one of the only candidates to embrace gun control group endorsements which he lined up after Max Nacheman started working with his campaign. Fortunately, not even Nacheman could save Rovner’s challenge to the incumbent.

Nacheman, interestingly, cites his address in the campaign reports as Bashing Ridge, New Jersey. Max would hardly be the first gun control advocate to cross the Delaware in order to blame Pennsylvania’s pro-gun culture for the crime and corruption of New Jersey and New York. We gun owners in Eastern Pennsylvania have grown used to seeing CeaseFire New Jersey’s Bryan Miller all over Philadelphia. Perhaps the next time Max Nacheman comes over to promote MAIG-backed illegal gun control ordinances, he can hitch a ride with Bryan Miller and offer to pick up the bridge tolls with Brady Campaign funds.

I Will Welcome Rendell’s Departure

Republican or Democrat, at least we won’t have Ed Rendell to kick around anymore after 2010, or maybe that’s the other way around. Go see Capitol Ideas for the Guv’s latest delusions of grandeur. HeÂ thinks we’re lucky to have Obama, and, of course, him. Because he gets this whole green thing. Unless, of course, by green you mean money. If the budget crisis of Ed’s making wasn’t proof enough that Rendell either skipped Econ 101 or slept through it, he also believes we’re not paying enough for milk. Price controls? What could possibly go wrong?

Hat Tip to Grassroots PA for the milk thing.

Scranton Looks to Challenge State Preemption Laws

It looks like the Scranton City Council wants to hop on board with the effort to end Pennsylvania’s preemption on local gun laws with a lost and stolen requirement. What’s different about this case is that it would be the first city with a mayor who is not in Bloomberg’s anti-gun coalition to pass this illegal law. Of the nine cities that have passed it and the one that passed a resolution in support of it, all have mayors who are supporters of Mike Bloomberg’s initiatives.

With the mayor of Scranton running for Governor, this may not be the kind of attention he wants for the town. It would be wise for gun owners in the city to get him on their side, as well as call all of the Council members listed in the ILA alert.