PA Bill Number: SB945
Title: Consolidating the act of August 9, 1955 (P.L.323, No.130), known as The County Code; and making repeals.
Description: Consolidating the act of August 9, 1955 (P.L.323, No.130), known as The County Code; and making repeals. ...
Last Action: Third consideration and final passage (199-0)
Last Action Date: Apr 17, 2024
FOAC's August 2021 Newsletter and Meeting Notice w-Linked Agenda :: 08/07/2021
The general membership meeting of FOAC will be August 8th, at 10 AM through the Zoom Conferencing option (details below).
Online Meeting Connection Details (also available at the end of the newsletter) are as follows:
Join the FOAC Meeting by Clicking this Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/4122571099
Guest Speaker(s): N/A
**Please Note: To join this FOAC meeting you must RSVP by sending an e-mail info@foacpac.org and the Meeting Password will then be e-mailed to you by one of the officers. (Time: 10:00 a.m.)
You can view or download a copy of the Meeting Agenda at this Link: Meeting Agenda!
This past week has seen incredible stories came to the surface with attacks on private property and open defiance of the US Supreme Court, to a governor who is out of control, to a Biden appointee who seems to have a career full of self-inflicted wounds. All of this is caused us a deep desire to reflect on the importance of the concept that many in government service only give lip service to, “the rule of law”!
So, what is “the rule of law” and why is it so important? Furthermore, what is the highest law of the land and how is it enforced, if at all? So many amongst us seem to refer to the Constitution and yet when asked about it, it is clearly evident that most if not read it. What is even more exasperating is that many who run for political office swear an Oath to the document that they have no concept of what is in it or what the Oath actually means!
This past week we have heard Pres. Biden refer to several sections of the Constitution and then take actions that presumptively violated it. This is not my interpretation because the United States Supreme Court specifically said his administration’s position on private property rights, through the CDC’s eviction moratorium, was unconstitutional. The president even said that it was unconstitutional yet later that same day re-institutes the very same unconstitutional attack on private property rights. Do you think there’s going to be hearings on this? Do you think there’s going to be a midnight raid on the White House to arrest Joe Biden for openly flaunting the will of the Supreme Court?
So, what does the oath of office “really” mean and why is it so uniformly violated with impunity?
I was always led to believe, when I entered the military, that my oath pledged that I would obey the orders of those in rank above me and that I would follow the laws of the United States of America as well as the United States Constitution and protect same, subject to the penalties under the UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice).
This past week has highlighted what has apparently been going on for a long time with the examples of Joe Biden and Andrew Cuomo (New York Gov.) and David Chipman (ATF nominee) having all apparently violated their oath of office with impunity.
What does it mean when we have a governor of a state openly violates and defies the law and makes life a living hell for everyone around him especially his female staff? What does it mean when a president nominates an individual to the BATF top director position, David Chipman, who has a record of ignoring the Constitution and twisting the law to what he thinks it means? Mr. Chipman’s record is full of philosophical and ethical conundrums as well as personal lapses in judgment and an institutional and poorly concealed racial bias. Yet somehow the powers that be, including all of the Democrats, seem to think none of that matters anymore? If you want to know how extremist Chipman’s views are on guns, you can look at his past calls for gun registration and licensing. He refers to the AR-15 “as a particularly lethal weapon,” but while that might convince the media, AR-15s are functionally identical to any small-caliber semi-automatic hunting rifle. The anti-gun groups who profess to be focused on safety with firearms are all too willing to push a man like this into a position where he will destroy people’s lives for unintentional violations of the law and create a process by which the civil rights of all citizens can be attenuated at a whim?
How these people look themselves in the eye in the morning in the bathroom mirror and think they’re doing the right thing?
This is, in my opinion, an example of the kind of societal rot that will destroy the nation from within if our leaders are not held to the same standards as the very citizens, they expect to put their lives on the line to protect them!
Joe Biden certainly isn't the first president to violate his oath of office, but he might be the first in memory to openly brag about doing it.
When asked today about the discrepancy, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki promised, "This is also going to be a temporary solution." Because, as Article 2, Section 5, apparently states, the executive can make laws irrespective of Supreme Court rulings, as long as he also crosses his heart and promises it's only going to be temporary. When pushed further on the matter, Psaki could not recall the moment when Biden was convinced there was solid legal ground to move forward.
Just who enforces the law? I’m reminded of the moment when at the close of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia on September 18, 1787, a Mrs. Powel anxiously awaited the results, and as Benjamin Franklin emerged from the long task now finished, asked him directly: "Well Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" "A republic if you can keep it" responded Ben Franklin. Prior to that momentous occasion Ben Franklin said, in 1759, something that is engraved in granite on the steps going up into the Harrisburg capital building, “They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
A lot of people have been wagging their fingers at this or that political party and always shifting the blame from the reality that Ben Franklin knew back in 1787, it is up to US to defend the Republic and to stand firm on our values and beliefs. This is a time-honored lesson that it seems that the American people have forgotten, by and large. Keeping in mind that that does not excuse the actions of those elected to office, it just makes our predicament all the more critical!
If we want to Constitution and law to mean anything ‘we the people’ simply must have a better understanding of our role in protecting all that we hold dear! No one else will fight for your freedoms and rights and accountability for those in office any better than you will! The struggle awaits and only time will tell if we are up to the task!
MAIG (Mayors Against Illegal Guns) Another Criminal Anti-Gun Mayor
on May 19, as part of a cocaine trafficking investigation, police raided the home of Rochester New York’s anti-gun MAIG Mayor Lovely Warren, which she shares with her husband Timothy Granison,
It seems the raid turned up not only drugs but also several firearms. These firearms were also unsecured according to the requirements and New York law.
Somehow this anti-gun Mayor was able to live with her husband and have no idea of the firearms that he possessed. Since he was a convicted individual who could not own firearms it seems difficult to believe that this anti-gun Mayor was completely oblivious to these weapons in the home.
Of course, considering that she is accused of violating New York election laws her position on the believability index is not very high.
This is just another example of the hypocrisy in the MAIG movement for criminal individuals to think that they can be above and beyond the law! What will remain consistent is that all of the anti-gun groups will be silent on this hypocrisy, and her own for that matter!
What’s Next After Defunding the Police – Abolishing Prisons
If you thought the sanity of progressives and the left and the anti-gun groups was off the rails then you haven’t heard the latest! How about abolishing prisons? Well, the media is openly coveting and encouraging the advocacy for the end of prisons because of the so-called “demonstrable harm that happens to people who are in cages”! Of course, these advocates avoid any mention of the demonstrable harm to people who are victimized by armed robberies, such as those committed by at least one of the advocates, Jorge Antonio Renaud.
On the Aug. 4 episode of "PBS NewsHour," they celebrated Jorge Antonio Renaud. Renaud stated, on the "Latino Rebels" website last year, that "I'm going to speak about prison abolition, which is the idea that the American criminal justice system is immoral, grounded as it is in punishment and abuse; that it gains sustenance from humans consigned to cages; and that it must be dismantled and replaced by a justice system based in transformative and restorative approaches." PBS anchor Judy Woodruff provided a taxpayer-funded platform for Jorge Renaud who spent 27 years behind bars.
Another anti-gun media outlet, the Associated Press, added to the lunacy when they filed a "news" dispatch on Aug. 5 that was really a poorly disguised ad for the "abolish ICE" crowd. The headline was "Immigrant Detentions Soar Despite Biden's Campaign Promises." AP reporters Philip Marcelo and Gerald Herbert began from the illegal alien perspective. "Alexander Martinez says he fled from homophobia, government persecution and the notorious MS-13 gang in El Salvador only to run into abuse and harassment in America's immigration detention system."
Just like PBS, AP did not offer the public an actual debate on whether all of our prisons should be emptied out. They created a demonstrably one-sided platform for a nutball, radical point of view, without any consideration for the consequences.
The media pretend that they are the guardians of democracy. But in reality, they are the guardians of the left and distrust democracy. It’s important to remember that the same people who hypocritically support defunding the police and abolishing prisons while simultaneously being privileged enough to retain a private security detail, of course, are also those who usually support draconian, rights-infringing gun restrictions.
In the WHAT Are They Thinking Dept.-PA Rep. Burgos Wants to Give Illegal (undocumented) Immigrants PA Driver’s Licenses ‘is’ Voting Next????????????
The PA House Transportation Committee is scheduled to hold a public hearing to consider HB 279, which would give illegal immigrants the ability to obtain a PA driver's license. It will be held on Wednesday, August 11th at 10:00 AM in room G50 of the Irvis Building at the Capitol.
If passed, this poses many serious concerns, including election integrity.
This will lead to granting illegal immigrants the right to vote in PA. If not immediately, certainly in the future.
Billionaires Money Turning Gunowners into Caged Lab Rats
It seems University professors are incapable of understanding, or coming to grips with, why gun owners don’t want to give up their guns.
The University of Connecticut is boasting of a collaborative effort with Johns Hopkins University Center for Gun Violence Research Center “to conduct a comprehensive survey on the harms and benefits of firearm polices for gun owners.”
That’s interesting phrasing, “the harms and benefits.”
Follow the money
One of the first questions that should be asked is who is funding the study? That, many times, can help answer the question of why. In this case, the research is made possible from a $228,000 grant from the National Collaborative on Gun Violence Research (NCGVR). It’s one of nine grants totaling more than $1 million. Other grants include exploring tactical and strategic uses of a national ballistic database and policymaking in the wake of mass shootings.
NCGVR is funded by Arnold Ventures, which was founded by billionaires John and Laura Arnold. This is the same Arnold Ventures NSSF warned of last year when they commissioned the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago to construct and convene a panel of medical professionals to organize a wishlist of dangerous and overreaching proposals. These demands are detailed in the Blueprint for a U.S. Firearms Data Infrastructure.
Laura Arnold even has her own column on how to shake down people for private donations to fund gun control studies – kind of like this one between UConn and Johns Hopkins University. That’s the same Johns Hopkins where antigun billionaire Michael Bloomberg has topped $3 billion in donations. It’s no wonder they dedicated an entire research center to his gun control efforts.
The CDC can and has studied gun control. It just can’t do it to push policy ideas. Gun control relies on biased studies funded by biased anti-gun billionaires and researchers to prop up their agenda. For them, guns are always harm, never a benefit.
Clueless New York Sen. [Gillibrand] Believes in Canceling Gun Sales
Clueless ideologues, like US Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, sees no personal cost to their efforts to disarm Americans and this is, in part, because she refuses to arm herself!
This refusal to accept reality is a pattern and practice that is followed so as to ply to the weaker individuals in these districts who, themselves, have a disconnect from reality.
See these comments From the nydailynews.com:
A measure to create a federal gun trafficking crime failed to make it through the Senate in 2013, on the heels of the devastating shooting that killed 20 schoolchildren in Newtown, Conn. Still, Gillibrand said she was “very hopeful” the legislation will pass this time around.
“Guns travel up the iron pipeline along I-95 from states like Florida or Georgia or Pennsylvania where gun laws are far less strict,” Gillibrand said in the news conference. “The percentage of illegally trafficked guns in New York State has continued to grow in recent years, but I refuse to believe that we can’t stop these illegal guns from coming into our state.”
She plans to reintroduce the legislation this week, according to her office. Adams praised Gillibrand for her dogged decade-long effort on the bill.
It is already illegal to buy a gun outside of New York, bring it to New York, and sell it in New York, without going through a federally licensed dealer. It is a felony in both federal law and New York State law. Gillibrand seems to think making those actions somehow more illegal, with more law, will work where the current laws do not.
Consider her self-admitted mindset:
I refuse to believe that we can’t stop these illegal guns from coming into our state.
The gun laws have been in place for more than 50 years. It is part of the framework of the 1968 Gun Control Act. Homicide skyrocketed after the 1968 GCA was passed. The legal restrictions have not worked the whole time. In New York, in 1967, the murder rate was 6.5 per 100k. It was rising rapidly. It reached a peak of 14.5 in 1990. Then it started falling. the current rate, 2.9 is the lowest since 1965. Gun laws in the rest of the nation became less and less restrictive since 1987.
You cannot have a free republic, with the limits and checks on government which we have, and do what Gillibrand wants done. Nor is there any evidence what she wants done would have any effect on the number of people murdered.
Why push the obviously flawed concept of controlling the gun flow, in order to reduce violent crime and homicides, when it demonstrably does not work?
For Gillibrand, this is a brand. It is what won her the Senate seat, and placed her in a position of power and authority, one of the most influential and powerful people in the world. That is plenty of reason enough.
It costs her nothing. It is important to understand, the people who want others disarmed, assume such policies cost them nothing. They may be wrong in the long-term analysis. They may also be dead long before any adverse effects would impact them.
ACLU is Trying to Edit the 2nd Amendment Out of Bill of Rights
The ACLU has become a shadow of its former self. It’s no longer, if it ever was, the Praetorian Guard of protecting God-given liberties, but is now focused on advancing special interest agendas that are, in many cases, diametrically opposed to citizen’s rights. The ACLU’s disdain for the Second Amendment as a individual right isn’t new, but it is an attempt to flip it on its head. The ACLU‘s argument that the Second Amendment is a tool of oppressors doesn’t just ignore history. It is rewriting cold, hard facts.
By now, Second Amendment supporters are probably aware of what the ACLU put out regarding the origins of the constitutional provision that protects our right to keep and bear arms.
Playing the Racism Card Requires Examining the Roots of Racism
Maj Touré, the founder of Black Guns Matter, told The Daily Caller in his customary blunt fashion that claims the Second Amendment is racist is an attempt to, “brainwash black people into believing that having the means to defend themselves is nefarious. I think gun control is racist, not the Second Amendment.”
Claiming the Second Amendment has its roots in racism is simply one more avenue of attack America’s Neo-Marxist leverage against a Country forged on the tenets of Individualism and on a Judeo-Christian Ethic, the predicate basis of the U.S. Constitution; the blueprint of a truly free Republic in which the American citizenry itself is the sole sovereign, and those that serve in Government are the Nation’s mere caretakers.
As long as Americans remain armed and true to their history, heritage, culture, and moral precepts, and reject, outright, the inanity of the Marxist messaging, the Marxists will fail.
The Second Amendment clearly isn’t a white right or a Black right. It is a God-given right of all Americans to freely exercise at their choosing. If the ACLU can’t defend that, they need to change their name.
Federal District Judge in Hawaii Appears Ready to Declare Hawaii and Firearms Laws Violate Citizens Rights in Yukutake v. Connors
Hawaii’s law currently requires that any person applying for a permit to acquire a firearm must do so in person at a police station. State law also requires a person who obtains or brings a firearm into the state to register it on Oahu. When combined with Honolulu police departments policy that a person picks up a permit themselves after waiting 14 days, often means three separate trips to the station on three septate days when obtaining a firearm. Department policy limits the time and days people can pick up permits to Monday to Friday (excluding holidays) between the hours of 7:45 am and 3 pm and gives them a limited time frame to do so.
Hawaii’s requirement to transport a firearm to a police station for registration and Honolulu police department policies for the acquisition and registration of firearms is burdensome and unconstitutional.
State laws requiring the transportation of a firearm to the police station to register it has already been ruled on by the D.C circuit court and was found unconstitutional, and it is expected the same to be found in this situation. As a person is required to show ID and have a permit to acquire a firearm before purchasing one, registration could be handled by the gun store, who are already required by law to send the same information to the police department.
Overall Status of 2nd Amendment Legislation Filed to Date in PA and the US:
2021-2022 Session PA State Bills (updated)
- Pro-Gun Bills: 25
- Anti-Gun Bills: 58
- Unrated (Watching): 11
- Legislative (gun related) Memos: 118
2021-2022 Session Federal Bills (updated)
- Pro-Gun Bills: 42
- Anti-Gun Bills: 88
- Unrated (Watching): 34
Social Media Issues: Facebook Retaliates Against Whistleblower
https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/facebook-whistleblower-sophie-zhang-severance
Interesting Videos:
Remember Braveheart (the movie)? It appears that the Scots haven’t forgotten the concept of Freedom!
What happens when cops run out of ammo? When lawless mobs impulsively loot, commit arson, and kill the innocent, police can often restore order only with lethal force. But when cops run out of ammunition, what happens to social order at that point? The current situation in South Africa provides a real-world example.
Legal Developments on 2nd Amendment Rights: Gun Control Activists Downplay Gun Control as Solution to Crime
For a movement that views banning firearms as the fundamental lynchpin of its ideology, gun control groups don’t seem to want to talk about it that much these days. Oh sure, Joe Biden can go off script and declare that he wants to ban 9 mm pistols, but have you noticed that gun control activists would rather talk about something else much of the time?
Take a recent op-ed by two longtime activists, which barely mentions imposing new restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms and instead focuses on ways to reduce violence without more policing. Now, more policing is at the heart of the gun control movement; it’s reliant on law enforcement in fact. After all, every new gun control law must be enforced somehow, and cops are generally the ones to arrest individuals for violations of those laws.
Self-Defense with a Twist: Civilian Saves LEO
A driver in Arizona is being praised as a hero for saving the life of an ambushed state trooper on Thursday. Police say a suspect shot the state trooper who had stopped to investigate a car crash on an interstate west of Phoenix. A man driving by came to the trooper's rescue and ended up killing the suspect.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrt1ERPWrqQ
Words Have Meaning: Bill Ruger’s Haunting Statements on Magazines Used by Anti-Gunners
The anti-gun Brady organization is funding a lawsuit against the magazine manufacturer KCI that starts by quoting Bill Ruger’s infamous statement that “no honest man needs more than ten rounds” and that he “never intended for simple civilians” to have his “20- or 30-round magazines….”
Bill Ruger retired from the company he helped found in 2000. Since that time, Sturm, Ruger & Company have continued to produce AR15s and market 30-round magazines to the public, splitting from the ideas of Bill Ruger. The company currently supports the right of all Americans to own magazines of any size. The complaint doesn’t mention the company’s current stance on magazines.
Gun Control Group’s Lies to Remember: Giffords Pushing Gun Control that Wouldn’t have Stopped Killer
Former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, namesake of the gun control group Giffords, marked the 10th anniversary of her return to Congress by pushing gun control that did not stop her attacker from acquiring the firearm he used to almost take her life.
On March 4, 2015, Breitbart News pointed out that Gifffords’ attacker passed a background check to acquire the gun he used in the heinous act. The Christian Science Monitor noted the attacker bought the gun at a Tucson gun store and the manager of the store made clear the background check did not turn up any red flags.
Yet Giffords and her husband, Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), have spent the years since her attack pushing background checks.
Moreover, on August 1, 2021, Axios quoted Giffords’ describing Congressional inaction on background check expansion as “a huge disappointment.”
Forgotten American Heroes: Jon ‘Robbie’ Robinson
Vietnam voices: 'I'll give you $20 for a team going to ’Nam'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObJTlWXHocQ
Stay Free!
Kim Stolfer, President
**As a reminder, all FOAC members and, indeed, every gun owner can participate in the August 8, 2021 FOAC Monthly meeting from any PC, Mac, Linux, iOS or Android phone by clicking on the link below:
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Remember: FOAC is fiercely independent. We are not affiliated with, nor do we receive any money from, any national organizations. No sugar daddies. No New York billionaires. Memberships and individual donations are our only source of income.
If your friends are not a member - why not? The more members we have committed to making a difference, the greater FOAC’s impact in the legislature. By working together and making our voices heard, not only can we show the billionaires and their lapdogs that they don’t stand a chance in Pennsylvania, we can push through legislation that further restores and protects our rights.
