PA Bill Number: HB335
Title: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons.
Description: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons. ...
Last Action: Removed from table
Last Action Date: May 1, 2024
CCRKBA challenges lawmaker gun control group to reveal members, funding sources :: 12/12/2014
The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms threw down the gauntlet yesterday, challenging the newly-created American State Legislators for Gun Violence Prevention to “immediately publish a roster of their members, and disclose their funding sources.”
CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, in a blistering press release, noted that “When an organization consists of elected public officials, there must be complete transparency. The public deserves to know who belongs to this organization, and who is providing financial support.”
Earlier this week, ASLGVP was announced at a press event at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. The group reportedly held its first meeting a day later. According to published reports, there are supposed to be at least 200 members of this group, all state legislators, plus representatives from Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia. This column discussed formation of the organization Tuesday.
Perhaps not surprisingly, it appears the new organization may be top-heavy with Democrats, though there are some Republicans on board. That list includes “moderate” Kansas Rep. Barbara Bollier, who announced that she will introduce legislation “expanding background checks for gun sales because she believes gunshot wounds are a public health issue,” according to the Kansas Health Institute.
Perhaps not a “public health” issue, but considering the video statement from Aaron Ybarra, the accused Seattle Pacific University killer, publicized by yesterday’s Seattle P-I.com, mental health – or the lack of it – might figure into the equation. Charged with killing one student and shooting two others last summer, Ybarra reportedly told Seattle Police detectives that “he’d become obsessed with school shootings in recent years and, in part because of a diagnosed but untreated mental illness, remained committed to carrying one out,” the on-line newspaper said.
Several people involved in high-profile shootings, including Adam Lanza, Naveed Haq, Ian Stawicki, Jared Lee Loughner and others had mental health issues. Ybarra reportedly told investigators that he “just felt nothing but hate.”
Gottlieb is suspicious of the new lawmakers’ organization because its mailing address is a Post Office box in New York City’s Madison Square Station. ASLGVP was founded by New York Democrat Assemblyman Brian Kavanagh.
“Gun owners in all 50 states deserve to know, before legislative sessions begin next month, which lawmakers in their states will be pushing this new group’s agenda,” Gottlieb said. “And they also deserve to know who is paying for it.”
Kavanagh reportedly declined the other day to reveal a membership roster or funding sources. Members apparently are worried about “political backlash.” Perhaps that’s because they seem to focus on restricting Second Amendment rights instead of institutionalizing dangerously mental ill people.
“If these state lawmakers are worried about political backlash back home,” Gottlieb said, “they must have good reason for that.”
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