The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …
“The prisons are bulging. Don’t tell me enforcement’s the problem,” he said. Limiting sales of handguns is imperative, Rendell said, because “a high percentage of crime guns are purchased by people other than the actor.”
Make no question about what Rendell really wants to do here. His party must be punished for this next November.
Rendell is already starting with the charade.
An angry Rendell, clenching his teeth and pounding the lectern so hard it rocked, on Friday implored lawmakers to take guns out of the hands of thugs to protect citizens and police. The governor’s passionate outburst came on the heels of the murder of Philadelphia Officer Chuck Cassidy.
“How much will it take? What does the toll have to be before we do anything?” Rendell said during a news conference. He noted that two more Philadelphia police officers had been wounded by gunmen since Nov. 9, the date he proposed a mandatory 20-year sentence for shooting at a police officer.
“We have a problem,” Rendell said, pausing. “Houston, we have a problem.”
We do have a problem. I can think of two big ones off the top of my head, here, and here. And that’s just scratching the surface of the problem. Gun control is the ultimate cop out for Philadelphia politicians. As long as they can beat that drum, they don’t have to be effective.
GeekWithA45 has a public service announcement. Blog-O-Stuff notes a call to action from the Pennsylvania Sportsman’s Association. They are asking folks to show up in Harrisburg tomorrow. Sadly, I won’t be able to make it. Eric talks about why weakening preemption is a bad idea.
More later…
Based purely on what I know of Pennsylvania politics, which is admittedly incomplete, I thought I’d do an analysis of how the vote may likely turn out on the gun bills next Tuesday. I got a little bored with my descriptions of how the various representatives will hurt or help us :) Either way, the results of my analysis:
Likely votes against gun control: 15
Likely votes in favor of gun control: 9
Could go either way: 5
This is definitely no time to get complacent folks, because this could definitely break against us if Rendell is able to twist enough arms. The maybe people, and the chairs of the committee are the most profitable people to contact. But make sure they hear from you. Even someone on our side will like to hear that you appreciate their stand in favor of your gun rights.
I’ve provided links, as well as some speculation as to where the various state representatives likely stand. It’s important to contact friends as well as enemies. Click below for more.
It’s always been a mystery to me why Pennsylvanians, who normally have no love of the City of Philadelphia, would elect its Mayor as their governor. Rendell made inroads among suburban voters because he has a reputation for turning the city around. That reputation is largely undeserved. Philadelphia rode the same economic boom everyone else in the 90s did, but was greatly outpaced by other cities. Ed Rendell never really fixed any of the cities problems, and to some degree, dumped a lot of those problems on John Street, who was unable to deal with them any reasonably effective manner.
It’s even more of a mystery why gun owners in this state didn’t work harder to defeat him. There are very few politicians more anti-gun than Ed Rendell. He is one of the true believers in gun control. He was smart enough as a politician not to push his gun control agenda very hard during his campaign, and during his first term. Gun owners got complacent, and he was elected to a second lame duck term. Now that he no longer has to face the voters, there will be no arm Ed Rendell won’t twist to get his way, and everyone in Pennsylvania knows Rendell is a pit bull when it comes to fighting for his agenda.
We have to stop this tide now. We all know there will always be Just One More Law, because none of what’s being proposed will fix Philadelphia’s crime problem. I do hope everyone makes at least a few phone calls before this vote on the 20th. If this does make it out of the assembly, we stand a good chance of being able to stop it in the senate. Remind your state representatives that you oppose this. Ed Rendell may be a lame duck, but if we punish his party for this behavior in the next election, the next anti-gun governor will have a much harder time twisting arms. Elections matter, and now it is time to pay the piper for handing Rendell a second term.
Rendell managed to get a judiciary committee vote on his gun control measures:
At the request of Governor Ed Rendell (D), the Pennsylvania House Judiciary Committee has tentatively scheduled a meeting for Tuesday, November 20 at 10:00am, to vote on several anti-gun measures. The package of bills include one-gun-a-month, a requirement for individuals to report lost or stolen firearms, and legislation that would overturn Pennsylvania’s current preemption law.
The bills are:
It’s critical to write your state representatives and members of the Judiciary committee and tell them to vote no on these bills. Follow the link to the NRA alert to get contact info for the state representatives.
I’m guessing this guy decided that a job at Wal-Mart wasn’t his style.
If there’s one thing that really does annoy me in local elections, and Democrats have been particularly guilty of this, is running against the leaders in the national government. Eric has a prime example of this.
Note to Democrats: If you tell me that I should vote for your local worms because it will make George W. Bush cry, I will vote for the other guy. Well, unless the other guy thinks Pennsylvania is Utah. The Republicans managed to retain control of Montgomery County. Maybe that’s because the residents of Montgomery County are more interested in hearing how candidates would run county government, and didn’t buy this juvinile attempt to make people think that a vote for their guy is a great way to stick it to George W. Bush.
It’s election day in Pennsylvania, which means I need to go vote, something I seldom enjoy doing. On the ballot are county and township offices, as well as Supreme Court, and Superior Court seats. I’ve decided to go Democrat at the township level, and you’ll see why later. Guns are off the table because of preemption, no need to worry about that.
County wide, I’m going Republican, mostly to fight this “regionalism” concept I keep hearing out of Democrats. Regionalism goes like this: The suburbs have been traditionally Republican and don’t often vote with the City of Philadelphia. The suburbs are increasing trending Democrats, and will soon start to vote more in line with the City of Philadelphia.  Well, suburban Democrats, if that’s what you’re selling, I’m not buying it. I mean, the city politicians are doing such a bang up job! I want a my politicians to tell me “City politicians have turned Philadelphia into a sewer. Why do we want to bring that to the suburbs?”  Of course, no one will say that, but screw it, I’m voting Republican to keep the county in Republican hands, so suburban Democrats don’t get any ideas.  Silly, I know, but I don’t know the county candidates from a hole in the ground otherwise.
For the court stuff, I’m just going with the NRA endorsements. I don’t know anything else about these guys other than they have great families, and love kittens. That’s all court candidates ever talk about anyway. Plus, I’m still really mad about the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling the state police could keep a registry of firearms, even though there’s a state law that specifically forbids that. If you’re willing to do that, what does it say about your respect for the law?
Either way, off I go to push buttons on our newfangled electronic voting fraud machines. Â Fun fun!
Some cable news coverage of our Sasquatch controversey on MS-NBC. Keith Olbermann starts off, quite properly, making fun of this case, and stating the PGC’s position on the issue, but then presents a completely one sided interview which holds open the possibility there’s something behind this.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3pMTyOQUCM[/youtube]
The Pennsylvania Game Commission’s statement on this: “There is no question it is a bear with a severe case of mange” should have been the last word on this. But I guess a good bigfoot story was too juicy to pass up for the main stream media. I’ll take the word of PGC biologists over Bob Kiviat or Keith Olberman any day of the week.