Pennsylvania – Page 91 – Shall Not Be Questioned

“Stalinist System, Just Gussied Up a Bitâ€

Bitter has posted an article from Food and Wine talking about the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, and Pennsylvania’s ossified liquor laws in general.Â As much as it’s a problem for individual citizens, it’s an even bigger problem for restaurants and bars.Â As a citizen, I can go over to New Jersey to get liquor, beer, and wine I can’t easily get here.Â Â While I wouldn’t describe New Jersey’s liquor laws as the model of liberalism, they are certainly less draconian than Pennsylvania’s.Â Bars and Restaurants don’t have this option.Â Â As a condition of their liquor license, they have to buy from the state monopoly, which means you have your choice of wines and spirits that the state monopoly carries.Â Â There have been significant improvements in recent years in this regard, but the LCB is and will remain an antiquated system that ought to be abolished.

In other states, you can by wine, beer, and in some cases even hard liquor in supermarkets.Â I think only a fool would argue that these states have more alcohol related problems than Pennsylvania does. Â I think it’s high time our state legislators ended the state monopoly, and adopted liquor laws more similar to Arizona’s.

Tomorrow’s Election

Despite the fact that tomorrow’s election is a primary, it will essentially decide who will be the next Mayor of Philadelphia.Â If polls are to be believed, it will be taken by Michael Nutter.Â Despite the fact that I can’t vote in primaries, there is a ballot measure in regards to taxation that I will need to show up and vote against.

It’s basically about the Township of Middletown passing a 1% Earned Income Tax to help pay for schools, and offset property taxes.Â As it is, I already pay this tax to Plymouth Township, where I work.Â If it were to pass, it would just meant my money is going to the schools in my neighborhood rather than the schools where I work.Â I still plan to vote no, however, on the principle that I prefer property taxes in income taxes.Â I’ve never understood the objection to property taxes, personally.

NBC25 Gets it Wrong

Gretchen Gailey should have talked to someone familiar with PICS before writing this article:

For anyone who wants to purchase a gun they must go through paperwork on the federal and state level. The federal check clearly asks if the buyer has ever been committed to a mental institution, but the state form from Pennsylvania, never delves into the issue.

The application/record of sale (which only applies to handguns, long gun sales still go through PICS, but rely on the federal 4473 form) does indeed delve into the issue.Â One of the questions on the SP4-113 form “Application/Record of Sale” asks:

31. Have you ever been convicted of a crime enumerated in section 6105(b) or do any of the conditions under 6105(c)Â apply to you?Â

In 6105(c), which is printed on the back of the form, you will find:

4.Â has been adjudicated as an incompetent or who has been involuntarily committed to a mental institution for inpatient care and treatment under Section 302, 303, or 304 of the provisions of the at of July 9, 1976 (P.L.817, No. 143), known as the Mental Health Procedures Act.Â

Answer yes on the form, the sale stops right there.Â Answer no, and you will still get run through the PA Instant Check System.Â Someone answering no falsely on the form would be committing a felony.Â The article notes:

â€œIf it has been a court order that they are ordered to see mental help, that should go on the books and that should be a part of the background check,â€ says Heckman.

It is part of the background check in Pennsylvania.Â PICS includes the mental health records for the entire commonwealth.Â It also includes whatever is in the federal NICS system. Â The reporter is correct when she points out:

Pennsylvania is one of 28 states that does not share its mental health records with the federal gun database, because it would violate the Mental Health Procedures Act.

True, but Pennsylvania does use mental health records in the state system.Â Reporting mental health records to the feds is something Rendell can’t change. Â That would require a legislative remedy.

Reporters like Ms. Gailey would be wise to remember that gun shop owners aren’t always experts on all aspects of firearms law.Â By not doing thorough research, people are mislead to believe that Pennsylvania’s firearms laws and purchase regulations aren’t addressing mental health issues.Â This is not true.

Rendell Honest on Gun Control

I was surprised to come across this article highlighting our Governor’s views on gun control in the wake of the Virginia Tech tragedy, and I found it refreshing that Rendell doesn’t seem to be taking a hard line approach, even making some honest admissions for someone who has strongly supported gun control efforts:

The Rendell administration is examining laws that control who may buy guns in Pennsylvania in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shootings, but the governor is unlikely to follow his Virginia counterpart’s lead and call for barring firearms sales to anyone ordered to get mental-health treatment, a top administration aide said.

“Should everybody who’s depressed not be able to buy a gun?” asked Donna Cooper, Gov. Ed Rendell’s policy secretary, whose staff is pulling together information about how other states balance patient privacy rights and public safety.

Wow! To be fair to Tom Kaine, his executive order limited itself to outpatient treatment combined with a danger finding. It doesn’t just apply to anyone ordered to outpatient treatment.

“Laws alone cannot protect society from crazed killers”, Cooper said, recalling the October 2006 shootings at an Amish schoolhouse in Lancaster County.

Double wow! Read the whole thing. Apparently Pennsylvania is one of the states that deosn’t report mental health records to NICS, though they are contained in the PICS system. Mentally incompetent people wouldn’t be able to buy a gun in Pennsylvania, but would be able to buy a long gun in another state.

Of course, I doubt this changes his support for gun rationing, which I will continue to oppose.

UPDATE: The article now actually includes a link to the story.

Philadelphia Wants Local Gun Laws

The same people behind the H.B. 760, the statewide registration bill are now pushing for a bill that would allow Philadelphia to maintain a gun registry:

State Reps. Angel Cruz and Rosita C. Youngblood yesterday announced another effort aimed at reducing the flow of guns in Philadelphia, this time by allowing the city to create a gun-registry system. Surrounded by reporters yesterday in his storefront office on North Fifth Street, Cruz said “something has to be done” to ease the wave of gun violence that has gripped the city.

Cruz said that while law-abiding citizens purchase guns, “bad people buy guns, too. This way we will know who has the guns.”

So the drug dealers and gang members are going to register their guns with the police? It would seem that is not likely. So what you’re saying is, you’ll know which law abiding people have guns, which, maybe I’m crazy here, seems pretty useless.

But why do something useful, like locking up criminals, when politicians can keep proposing nonsense like this, and tell the people back home that Harrisburg is really responsible for their own failures.

Hat Tip to Classical Values.

PA Gun Registration – House Bill 760

I have gotten an update on the status of the Pennsylvania Gun Registration bill from Representative Sam Rohrer. Here’s the relevant excerpt:

The provisions of House Bill 760 are, in my opinion, unconstitutional, impractical and simply outrageous. Without question, a requirement to register all firearms with the State Police, to submit to fingerprinting, to provide full home address and social security number or be guilty of a summary offense as House Bill 760 would require, is an example of the clear violation of the citizenâ€™s right to keep and bear arms. For any member to sponsor, cosponsor or support legislation that clearly infringes upon constitutionally identified and guaranteed rights raises a serious question as to whether this action violates the oath that Members took to defend and protect the citizenâ€™s rights as guaranteed in the Constitutions of the United States and of Pennsylvania.

House Bill 760 would not only impose a violation of our constitutional rights through invasive government requirements, it would also tax our right to own firearms through a $10.00 tax to be levied every year on each firearm.

On Wednesday, April 18, 2007, Representative Caltagirone, who is the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, was quoted in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review. In reference to the House Bill 760 moving out of Judiciary Committee, Representative Caltagirone said, â€œItâ€™s not going anywhere.â€ His decision has much to do with the responses from each and every one of you.

Good work on both the part of Representative Rohrer and Pennsylvania gun owners. But he goes on to remind us that we have to remain vigalilent. It’s been my opinion that HB 760 was never meant to get anywhere, but serves as political cover for one-gun-a-month. By giving gun rights advocates something to focus their energies on, that had no chance of passing, it would wear us out in the fight to make sure gun rationing never becomes law in the commonwealth.

I think he’s right this bill isn’t going anywhere, but beware of gun rationing. That issue won’t go away.

Gun Rights Conference Today in Harrisburg

The Allegheny County Sportsman’s League (sort of like PA’s version of VCDL) is holding a Gun Rights Conference today in Harrisburg:

We all knew the challenges we would face after last yearâ€™s election and our darkest fears are being realized. The only way to defeat this is to join together once again and show those who would take our freedoms that we will not yield.

We will join together for an early preemptive strike on our issues by having a lobbying and education day, focusing on freshmen legislators, and connect that with launching our pro-gun agenda, as we did last year. Members of the Pennsylvania grassroots and gun ownerâ€™s coalition, which has been so successful for us on other issues, met with Representative Daryl Metcalfe in early December to devise a strategy for the upcoming session so that we would be prepared to deal with these issues. The date we have agreed upon is April 24^th and we will combine our meeting and lobbying with another Pro-Gun Press conference to introduce our pro-gun/pro-sportsmen agenda of legislation. We can also use this opportunity to excoriate the anti-gun forces, legislators and issues.

I went to the last rally at Harrisburg last September, where the house defeated, pretty overwhelmingly, the gun control wishlist of the Philadelphia politicians in the Committee of the Whole.Â I feel bad that I can’t get to this one to cover it, especially given that I have a freshman state representative, but I could end up short on vacation this year.Â Maybe next time.

We Need More Paternalism

According to a new study, Pennsylvania’s penchant for local government is really hurting the state.Â Any article that has something like this in it:

Recent studies say the state’s fragmented governmental structure and near-total absence of regional planning holds back economic progress, crippling older communities and allowing unchecked development despite nearly $1 billion in new funding aimed at community revitalization and open-space preservation.

is automatically suspect. Â I read it thusly: the decentralization of state power makes it really hard for those of us who would like to impose our own personal tastes and preferences on the rest of humanity.Â We really need to take control of these matters at the state level, so that we can dictate to your locally elected leaders just how wrong you are.

Piss on that, I say.

Some Interesting PA Case Law

Things are kind of slow right now, so I thought I’d drag an old bit of Pennsylvania case law out in Oritz vs. Commonwealth. The money quote:

Because the ownership of firearms is constitutionally protected, its regulation is a matter of statewide concern. The constitution does not provide that the right to bear arms shall not be questioned in any part of the commonwealth, except Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, where it may be abridged at will, but that it shall not be questioned in any part of the commonwealth. Thus, regulation of firearms is a matter of concern in all of Pennsylvania, not merely in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, and the General Assembly, not city councils, is the proper forum for the imposition of such regulation.

For the foregoing reasons, the order of Commonwealth Court is affirmed.

And with that, the courts threw Philadelphia and Pittsburgh’s assault weapons bans off the books, and upheld statewide preemption.

Wishful Thinking?

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, it’s high noon in the battle over gun control.

(midday Friday)The effort comes at a time when the number of slayings in Philadelphia is edging painfully upward – 105 at last count, the majority of them at the point of a gun. At least 15 bills are back in the pipeline; Gov. Rendell has turned up the volume on his pleas for stronger gun-control measures, and Democrats now control the state House. All this comes at a time when a new poll suggests a majority of Pennsylvanians are willing to accept handgun-sale limits.

Because we can see how well one-gun-per-month in Virginia, and strict handgun regulations in Maryland reduced violence in Washington DC.

Rep. Dan Surra (D., Elk) said that while he sympathized with residents living in high-crime areas, he could not support any gun-restriction bill because in certain quarters of his district, a hunting stronghold in the north-central part of the state, guns are a single-issue item at the polls.

“They will vote you out on this,” Surra said.

Why yes, we will.

“The feeling out here is that proposals that deal with firearms in general are inched toward the precipice, and once you start eroding Second Amendment rights, it’s a cascading effect,” Surra said.

“Guns are part of our culture, too. The difference is we don’t shoot each other,” said Surra, who recalls teaching students to build guns in shop class.

Man.Â I wish he taught my shop class.Â All I got to make was a damned stool.

And although Evans is determined to get the one-handgun-a-month bill to the floor this year, Caltagirone, the new chairman of the Judiciary Committee, does not think he can deliver it. “I don’t have the votes at this point in time,” Caltagirone said, adding that he hopes to work on a compromise that could pass.

Compromise?Â I don’t see where there’s room to compromise on “shall not be questioned” you loser.

Pennsylvania “is a priority state for us,” said Peter Hamm, communications director for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Handgun Violence, which teamed with other gun-control groups to form the coalition Pennsylvanians Against Trafficking Handguns in 2005. “We believe there is enough political ability in the legislature to enact change.”

Let them have one-gun-a-month, they won’t go home happy.Â It’s important to fight this.Â There are already laws on the books for tracking multiple handgun sales both at the state and federal level. Â The only reason they want this is to open the door to further restrictions on guns in the commonwealth.