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PA Bill Number: HB2542
Title: In the Secretary of the Commonwealth, further providing for powers and duties of the Secretary of the Commonwealth.
Description: In the Secretary of the Commonwealth, further providing for powers and duties of the Secretary of the Commonwealth. ...
Last Action: Referred to STATE GOVERNMENT
Last Action Date: Aug 21, 2024
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FOAC's The 'Blast' Newsletter & Dec. 8, 2019 Holiday Meeting Notice w-Agenda :: 12/07/2019
The December FOAC Membership Meeting (Dec. 8th) will be the final meeting of the 2019 and, as is our tradition, we will follow the meeting with our end of the year Christmas Party. Every two years FOAC elects @50% of the Board of Directors and the results of this biennial election will be announced at this meeting as well.
Since this meeting will be held at a different location we are hopeful that the Wi-Fi signal will allow us to connect to the internet so that FOAC members and gun owners can join us, through the Zoom Link, for the meeting portion from home or by cell phone, instead of in person, our internet meeting portal will be available to all at this link: https://zoom.us/j/156448331 which is open to not only FOAC members ‘but’ ALL gun owners interested in defending Freedom. (more meeting details below or at this link – (https://foac-pac.org/Events/256). We will make every effort to provide the meeting portal but the facility may not, in the long run, be up to allowing this option.
As we close out another year, I feel it is important to ask each member to please try to not only involve yourself more in this fight but please try to help us recruit NEW gun owners to this fight as well. Virginia should be a wake-up call for EVERY gun owner for if the anti-gun groups COMPLETE takeover in the ‘home’ state of the NRA doesn’t shock you then the 2nd Amendment may truly be lost.
Virginia gun owners waited until AFTER the election to get involved 'and' the damage was done. It is TOO late then! The enemy is inside the wire! See the picture below for how they are struggling now:
Is THIS Pennsylvania next year, the year after? WHY would we wait unti disaster strikes to get involved??
We seem to, inexorably, be becoming a nation and a culture of “We used to”. The older I get and the more I see, the more I have to tell people about what we used to be able to do. We never seem to gain any more freedom, but constantly, slowly day by day, we lose more of it. I keep having to tell people and my son what we used to be able to do. I point out some of the places where I used to be able to hunt, but are now not only developed but where some places have posted signs and when I have asked, not only been told that there’s no hunting but get a lecture from the owners why they hate hunting.
When I was growing up, if you would have told me that in the forty years or so from that time we would have politicians openly calling for guns to be sold to the government under the penalty of imprisonment, or laws put in place where a simple phone call or an allegation would mean that you would be standing before a judge pleading to exercise the rights you are already supposed to have, I would have laughed at you. We all knew there were elected officials wanting to ban guns, but they never had the spine to say it openly or with the blessing of the media like we have today. Those same elected officials are purging our schools of shooting sports that help educate kids, I know more than once I have had to tell people that “We used to” have a rifle range at school. Nowadays the thought of a kid bringing a gun to school would cause a sheer panic among the media, administrators and that kid’s life would be ruined, whereas two decades ago, it was a normal occurrence.
I see America as a whole balancing on the edge of a precipice. No matter who wins the Presidential election next year, America is slowly losing its soul. Our entire culture is changing, and not for the better in my view. We’re watching our traditions and pastimes dying before our eyes. We’re accepting now what we never would have before, and it seems that everyone is happy with new gadgets and watching professional athletes mock our heritage. It doesn’t seem to bother anyone that we’ve gone into a mentality that we were warned about in novels like “1984”, where an accusation could have you explaining yourself to someone in authority. Here we are, and some even on our side think it’s a good idea. I wonder what they will say in a decade from now when THEY start a sentence with “We used to”.
I only wish I knew now what I could have said to myself four+ decades ago, but would I have even listened? I have watched for decades as new laws come about. The naysayers stand there and say, “It will never happen”, only for IT to come to pass again and again. I often wonder if what we see now is what the Native Americans felt as they watched treaties being broken.
Bloomberg and 2nd Amendment Battle Lines
Among the many issues on which the political divide seems to be growing is the Second Amendment. We've written at great length about "the palladium of liberties," including just this week on both the Supreme Court's conundrum over a New York City law and Virginia Democrats' renewed effort to pass gun-grabbing legislation — as well as the growing "sanctuary city/county" movement in the state to reject those unconstitutional laws.
We truly hope the Supreme Court doesn't sidestep the New York issue because of the city's transparently phony effort to "moot" the lawsuit. The Second Amendment, unlike our other rights protected in the Bill of Rights, is sorely lacking in judicial clarity. As David French writes, "States can (and do) set high ceilings, but under current Second Amendment jurisprudence, it seems that they may be able to set very, very low floors — so low that that many jurisdictions take the position that the only clearly protected Second Amendment right is the right to possess a handgun in my own home for self-defense. A core individual liberty protected by the Bill of Rights should not be so poorly defined."
As if on cue, Democrat presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg has come along with proposed gun control that does nothing but violate the Second Amendment. The billionaire former mayor of New York City already funds Everytown for Gun Safety, one of the nation's most virulent anti-Second Amendment activist groups, and is on record saying that anyone who has a gun in their home is "pretty stupid." He also recently had favorable things to say about the Communist Chinese, who he says have to "listen to the public" because "no government survives without the will of the majority of its people." Actually, the ChiComs long ago secured their tyrannical rule by murdering tens of millions of unarmed people.
So, what does Bloomberg want? Despite having previously displayed his baffling ignorance on firearms, Bloomberg went to Aurora, Colorado — scene of the movie-theater mass shooting in 2012 — to pitch a slew of bad policies to regulate tools he knows nothing about. Bloomberg's wishlist includes a renewed ban on so-called "assault weapons" as well as a federal ban on standard-capacity magazines, "universal" background checks via a de facto national firearm registry and permit system, a federal "red flag" law, waiting periods, increased purchase age, banning 3D-printed guns, banning guns from all school campuses, and eliminating laws that protect firearm manufacturers from frivolous liability lawsuits.
Somebody has to fill the gap after Beto "Hell Yes, We're Going To Take Your AR-15" O'Rourke dropped out of the race.
"The right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed," reads the Second Amendment. Bloomberg and his ilk are doing their best to infringe at every turn.
Serializing Firearms, Registration and Bureaucratic Burdens
A primary purpose of the Gun Control Act (GCA) is to enable firearms to be traced from the manufacturer or importer of the firearm through the firearm’s sequence of distribution.
Federal firearms laws and regulations require that the identifying information contained on firearms be accurately and fully recorded in the acquisition and disposition (A&D) records retained by FFLs.
One aspect of the serialization of various parts of military rifles and pistols was necessitated in a bygone era of manufacturing, where much hand-fitting was necessary at the end of the production process, and parts were thus not interchangeable between individual guns.
Accordingly, consumers understandably wanted a way to keep together all parts assembled at the factory into one gun.
In those days, guns were “roughed-out” by machine, then “finished” by hand. Individual parts were carefully adjusted and modified, as appropriate, so that they worked perfectly together.
Thus, “matching serial numbers” were valued, indeed highly prized.
Today, “hand-fitting” is confined to expensive sporting and “collector” guns.
With current production military guns, and other guns designed for serious purposes, matching serial numbers, at least with regard to functionality, are irrelevant.
With modern serious guns, matching serial numbers attain relevance only within the arbitrary discipline of “collector value”
Until 1968, it was not legally required that rifles manufactured in the USA be serialized at all, although by then most were.
Even so, serialization was required only of receivers.
The government contends that requiring these markings to be placed on firearms and that the records be maintained by FFLs is critical in tracing firearms that are used in crimes. Symbols, numbers, and/or letters found in firearms serial numbers often identify model designations and date of manufacture and may include other coded manufacturer data that can be very important to a successful crime-gun trace. It is important to remember that the tracing is done AFTER the crime ‘and’ that even then the courts routinely plea-bargain the gun law violations away so WHY is all of this being done??
So, to you, are firearms serial numbers for good or bad? What do you think?
Quote of the Week: For most of the last three years, Donald Trump's critics have scoffed at supposed "conspiracy theories" that claimed a "deep state" of bureaucrats were aborting the Trump presidency. We have been told the word "coup" is hyperbole that reveals the paranoid minds of Trump supporters.
Yet oddly, many people brag that they are proud members of a deep state and occasionally boast about the idea of a coup.
Recently, former acting CIA chief John McLaughlin proclaimed in a public forum, "Thank God for the deep state." Former CIA director John Brennan agreed and praised the "deep state people" for their opposition to Trump.
Anti-Gun Quote of the Week: In November, VA Gov. Northam, who emerged unscathed from both an inquiry regarding a picture in which he confessed to and then denied wearing blackface, and comments in support of post-birth abortion, remained vague regarding outright confiscation. “That’s something I’m working [on] with our secretary of public safety,” he told reporters. “I’ll work with the gun-violence activists, and we’ll work [on] that. I don’t have a definitive plan today.”
1st Point to Ponder: "The less government we have the better — the fewer laws and the less confided power. The antidote to this abuse of formal government is the influence of private character, the growth of the individual." —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
2nd Point to Ponder: “Assault weapons' menacing looks, coupled with the public's confusion over fully-automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons --anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun-- can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons.” Josh Sugarmann, executive director and founder of the Violence Policy Center (VPC)
3rd Point to Ponder: (Outside the US Supreme Court on Dec. 2) It's almost as though they were bussed in for the event, given signs and told to stand there and look angry. The National Rifle Association's social media team asked anti-gunners the name of the case and what the case was about and none of them seemed to know. Shocker, right?
"The name of the case, I don't know," one man said. "Actually, frankly speaking, I did not read. I was recruited here to represent my grandchildren."
Later in the video the same man is shown talking about the NRA.
"Demand action! Demand action for shutting down [the] NRA," he said. The man also suggested getting rid of the Second Amendment because "a gun for self-protection" is "not relevant at all" today.
……………..
Another man seemed to think the case was about so-called "assault weapons."
"We want to ban 'assault weapons,'" he said. When asked how an "assault weapon" is defined, his response was even more facepalm worthy.
"Well, anything that can fire as fast as you can pull the trigger," he responded. Based on that definition alone, all guns would be banned.
Founding Father’s Statement on Freedom: "There is no vice so mean, so pitiful, so contemptible; and he who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and a third time, till at length it becomes habitual." —Thomas Jefferson (1785)
Yours in Freedom!
Kim Stolfer, President
As a reminder, every gun owner can participate in the December 8, 2019 FOAC Monthly meeting from any PC, Mac, Linux, iOS or Android phone by clicking on the link below:
Join from PC, Mac, Linux, iOS or Android: https://zoom.us/j/156448331
One-tap Mobile: US: +19292056099,, 156448331# US (New York)
Dial by location: +1 929 205 6099 US (New York)
Meeting ID: 156 448 331
Find your local number: https://zoom.us/u/adSioEAVyf
Selected News Items from the FOAC Website
General News
- Bloomberg Unveils Radical Anti-Freedom Plan Attacking Second Amendment Rights
Democrat presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg, who is sympathetic toward the Chinese Communist Party, unveiled a massive anti-freedom proposal on Thursday aimed at severely clamping down on American’s constitutionally protected Second Amendment rights. more
- Giffords Launches Campaign To Block Trump Judicial Nominee
One of the most enduring legacies of the Trump administration is likely to be the number of federal judges he’s been able to appoint with the help of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Unless Democrats decide to overhaul the federal judiciary and pack the courts with judges of their own the next time they have the chance to do so, the judges appointed by President Trump are likely to have a big influence for decades to come. more
- Gun-grabbing activists Women Against Gun Violence lie about 'good guy with a gun'
One of the most contentious elements of the whole gun debate is the proper use of firearms for self-defense as well as stopping crimes as they occur. “Good guys with a gun” have repeatedly stopped bad guys with guns since before America was founded as a nation, and as gun-free zones like Chicago and Baltimore demonstrate, liberty control advocates have no leg to stand on in their push to deprive us of our constitutional rights. more
- Preventing Gun Violence is not a Compelling Governmental Interest
U.S.A. –-(Ammoland.com)- In a recent column, well-known Reason editor and writer Jacob Sullum made a likely unintentional error. He writes that “preventing gun violence” is a compelling government interest. From townhall.com: more
- We Cannot Rely Solely on the Courts to Save the Second Amendment
For the first time in nearly a decade, the United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments on a case directly involving the Second Amendment. Not since McDonald v. Chicago in 2010 has the High Court taken up a gun rights case, despite several opportunities to further clarify its landmark decisions in that case and the Heller opinion two years earlier. Conservatives, however, would be well advised to hold off uncorking the champagne bottles. more
- How to Avoid Civil War: Decentralization, Nullification, Secession
It's becoming more and more apparent that the United States will not be going back to "business as usual" after Donald Trump leaves office, and it is easy to imagine that the anti-Trump parties will use their return to power as an opportunity to settle scores against the hated rubes and "deplorables" who dared attempt to oppose their betters in Washington, DC, California, and New York. more
Legal Issues
- New Lawsuit Seeks To Stop Nevada's Red Flag Law From Taking Effect
Conservative activists in Nevada have filed a legal challenged to the state’s “red flag” firearms seizure law, which is set to take effect on January 1st. NevadaCAN, a “citizens action network” in the state, says the new law is unconstitutional, violating both the Second and Fourth Amendment rights of gun owners in the state. more
- Supreme Court Decision Blocks Lawsuit Against Armslist
The Supreme Court turned away an appeal by the daughter of a woman killed in a shooting at a Wisconsin spa in 2012, who was hoping to sue the website Armslist.com by claiming the site was liable for the suspect in the shooting acquiring his firearms. more
- Court won't revive suit against gun site over spa shooting
WASHINGTON (November 25, 2019) — The Supreme Court won’t revive a lawsuit against a firearms website over a suburban Milwaukee spa shooting. more
- Democrat Judge Upholds University Of Missouri's Campus Gun Ban
A former Democrat state lawmaker turned circuit court judge has upheld the University of Missouri’s ban on firearms in a case brought by a university professor who sought the ability to leave a firearm locked in the trunk of his car while at work. more
- Anti-Gunners: Symposium: Disrupting the consensus on Second Amendment doctrine would be a mistake
In one sense, the stakes in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. City of New York couldn’t be lower: The challenged regulation, a one-of-a-kind New York City restriction on transporting licensed handguns outside city limits, has already been repealed, arguably rendering the case moot. But when it comes to Second Amendment doctrine and methodology, the stakes are higher than they’ve been in a decade. more
- Ohio Supreme Court To Decide Whether Gun Owners Can Drink At Home
The idea of alcohol prohibition was settled almost a century ago when the Volstead Act was repealed by yet another constitutional amendment. It’s the only amendment that’s been passed, then repealed a short time later. In truth, prohibition was a complete and total disaster. more
- Gun Owners Seek Injunction Against California's Age-Based Ban
SAN DIEGO, CA –-(Ammoland.com)- Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) announced the filing of an amended complaint and new motion for a preliminary injunction in the case of Matthew Jones, et al. v. Attorney General Xavier Becerra, et al., a federal Second Amendment challenge to California’s ban on gun purchases by legal adults under age 21. The court filings are available online at www.firearmspolicy.org/jones. more
Self-Defense Issues
- Florida Self-Defense: Body found in backyard after Brevard resident said he shot at 2 men trying to break into home
Brevard County sheriff’s investigators are reviewing a deadly shooting that happened after a resident said two masked men tried to break into his home Wednesday in Central Brevard, according to the Sheriff's Office. more
- Oklahoma Self-Defense: Armed citizen allegedly stops charging car following chaotic theft in Moore
MOORE, Okla. (KFOR) - The chaotic scene following a theft at a Moore Best Buy was brought to an end by a bystander with a concealed carry permit. more
- Georgia Self-Defense: Delivery man shoots robbery suspect at Clayton County Hardee's
An armed delivery man thwarted a robbery at a Clayton County fast food restaurant Saturday morning by shooting the suspect, police said. more
- Illinois Self-Defense: 14-year-old girl tried to rob woman who shot her in the chest
CHICAGO - A 14-year-old girl allegedly tried to rob a woman who then shot the teen in the chest when the two met up for a sale Friday evening in Little Village. more
- Alabama Self-Defense: Home intruder killed in what police call self-defense in Limestone County
The intruder who died in a shooting Wednesday in Limestone County is identified as 65-year-old David Lee Walton. He lived on Garrett Road in the Belle Mina community, more
- Michigan Self-Defense: Man who broke into business shot by employee, police say
COMSTOCK TOWNSHIP, MI -- When a man broke into a closed business at 8:25 p.m. Friday, Nov. 29 he was met by an armed employee who fired shots. more
- Washington Self-Defense: Woman shoots and kills home intruder armed with knife in Grays Harbor County
GRAYS HARBOR COUNTY, Wash. – An armed home intruder was shot and killed by one of the home’s residents Wednesday night, according to the Grays Harbor Sheriff’s Office. more
- North Carolina Self-Defense: Official says Belle Mina shooting was in self-defense
The fatal shooting of a man in Belle Mina around 12:30 a.m. Wednesday appears to be in self-defense, an official said. more
- Florida Self-Defense: Miami Man In Van Guns Down AK-47 Wielding Robber Because He Didn't Want To Go Out Like A Punk
MIAMI (CBSMiami) – A 60-Year-old Miami man said he was forced to shoot and kill a gunman who had broken in to his van early Monday morning in an attempt to rob him of his jewelry. more