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 Weekly Message For Sunday April 7th 2019 :: 04/07/2019
On April 2nd the Pittsburgh City Council voted to formally and officially pass and adopt the amended legislation that was initially approved the week before by the very same vote 6-3. This puts Pittsburgh on a collision course with inevitably being dragged into court for violating Pennsylvania Preemption law and, hopefully, jail cells for the crimes they have intentionally and defiantly committed.
We are now just waiting for either the Misfit Mayor, Peduto, to sign the ordinances or 10 days to elapse and they will automatically become law. Either way we are prepared to challenge the crimes of the City of Pittsburgh legally and to force the hand of the District Attorney to take the necessary action against City Council and, potentially, the Mayor if he signs the bills.
There is word on the street that DA Zappala’s office is intimating that they can’t take action UNLESS someone is prosecuted (harmed) by these proposed laws first. That is flat out wrong! It is settled law that a plaintiff need not wait until he faces prosecution before bringing the challenge. See these cases and feel free to use them when you communicate with the DA’s office; Harris-Walsh, Inc. v. Borough of Dickson City, 216 A.2d 329, 331 (Pa. 1966); City of Erie v. Northwestern Pennsylvania Food Council, 322 A.2d 407, 411-12 (Pa. Cmwlth. 1974).
Please remember, these are CRIMES which were complete, upon offering of the proposals, but it is impossible to fathom how anyone, especially an experienced District Attorney, could contend that they aren't complete upon enactment. It would be like saying the bank robber cannot be charged for the robbery until he seeks to use some of the money that he stole. All of this is predicated on whether or not DA Zappala was sincere in his letter to City Council about the illegal nature of their proposed laws. We will SOON see!! Stay tuned and PLEASE continue to apply pressure to DA Zappala’s office to take criminal action against Pittsburgh City Council.
Preemption Strengthening Legislation Filed this week!
PA House and Senate members have responded to the lunacy and crimes in Pittsburgh by filing two separate and unique bills to strengthen PA firearm preemption law. Rep. Mark Keller (R-86-Perry) has introduced HB 1066 and Sen. Wayne Langerholc (R-35-Cambria) has introduced SB 531. Both of these bills provide for recovery of legal fees as well as restating clear legislative intent that ‘ONLY’ the state legislature has the authority to enact laws affecting firearms ownership and the Constitution. These WILL be a fight to be sure!! PLEASE go up and see if your legislator (House & Senate) is a co-sponsor and IF NOT then please ask him/her to co-sponsor and push leadership to take actions to get these bills enacted. We simply ‘cannot afford’ to allow rogue, unlawful acts by local communities that would violate Constitutional rights!
While we are on the state legislature; it has come to our attention, from a trusted source, that political machinations are underway to try and push another TERRIBLE bill – SB 90 / Extreme Risk Protection Orders by Sen. Killion.
What we have been told is that Sen. Killion has a tough reelection ahead of him next year and this legislative push is to ‘supposedly’ give him an edge in the eyes of the voters. Perhaps we should remind leadership of their recent losses like Marguerite Quinn and Becky Corbin and numerous others where HB 2060 and failure to pass preemption legislation LAST session was seen as a significant contributing factor in their loss by many, especially gun owners!
We simply cannot, as a Free Society, allow our right to Due Process be thrown under the bus by opportunistic politicians who have lost sight of their MOST important ‘duty’ that is to PROTECT our Constitutional rights from the power of the state to crush the individual.
While we are on the subject of Extreme Risk Protection Orders, let’s give honorable mention to Rep. Stephens who continues to ignore the growing body of evidence AGAINST Extreme Risk Protection Orders and just this past week reintroduced his own version of ERPO legislation – HB 1075.
Remember what Ben Franklin said, he gave us a Republic IF we can keep it! He knew that politicians would seek to dismember our Constitution and that is why we have a Bill of Rights!
Distant Battles to Watch: Federal Judge Benitez Stays California “Large-Capacity” Magazine Ruling Overturning California Ban
On April 4th, Federal District Court Roger T. Benitez issued an order staying enforcement of his judgment in the California case of Duncan v. Becerra. In that case, the court ruled that the California Magazine ban, that dates back to 2000, was unconstitutional and violated the 2nd Amendment. His decision shocked both sides of the debate. Judge Benitez’s decision was a tremendous victory for gun owners, striking down California’s restrictions against the manufacture, importation, sale, transfer, receipt, and possession of magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds.
Benitez’ subsequent ruling, on April 5th, stays enforcement of his decision and injunction as applied to the restrictions against the manufacture, importation, sale, transfer, and receipt of so-called “large-capacity” magazines. In other words, those restrictions would once again be enforceable after that time. The judge then issued a second stay on the enforcement of the ban on any magazines that the citizens acquired since Friday. Clarifying that the injunction against those restrictions will remain in effect “for those persons and business entities who have manufactured, imported, sold, or bought magazines able to hold more than 10 rounds between the entry of this Court’s injunction on March 29, 2019 and 5:00 p.m., Friday, April 5, 2019.”
Additionally, the ruling also makes clear that the preliminary injunction issued in July 2017, which prohibited the enforcement of the “possession” restriction enacted by Proposition 63 and Senate Bill 1446 will remain in effect during the appeal. In other words, California residents who lawfully possess magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds may continue to possess them while the case is appealed.
Do NOT put too much faith in the courts to be the final arbiter of our Freedoms!
Are Police Enough? The Narrative the Anti-Gun Groups, Billionaires and Politicians Ignore
In recent weeks, there has been much talk about the terrible crime situation in big cities, especially Baltimore. In 2018, there were 308 homicides in Baltimore. So far this year, there have been 69. That's in a 2018 population of 611,648 — down from nearly a million in 1950. Baltimore officials appear to be pinning their hopes to reduce homicides and other crime on their new Police Commissioner Michael Harrison now that all the Maryland socialist gun control laws have failed.
Another hot news item in Baltimore is the fact that Johns Hopkins University wants to hire 100 armed police officers to patrol its campuses, hospital and surrounding neighborhoods. The hospital president, Dr. Redonda Miller testified in Annapolis hearings that patients and employees are “scared when they walk home, they're scared when they walk to their cars.”
Philadelphia's Temple University police department is the largest university police force in the United States, with 130 campus police officers.
A little historical review is due here; in the 50’s, at Temple University, there was little or no campus police presence. That environment was replicated at Johns Hopkins, University of Chicago, and other colleges during the '40s, '50s and earlier weren't in an armed camp. In the nation's largest school districts, school police outnumber, sometimes by large margins, school counseling staffs. Again, something entirely new. Today, Philadelphia schools have hired more than 350 police officers. What has happened to get us to this point? Will hiring more police officers and new police chiefs have much of an impact on crime?
No doubt hiring more and better trained police officers will have some impact on criminal and disorderly behavior — but not much unless we create a police state. The root of the problem, however, is the breakdown of the family unit where fathers are absent. Children with no father in the home are five times more likely to be poor and commit crime, nine times more likely to drop out of school and 20 times more likely to be in prison.
As comic strip character Pogo said, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
Idaho Governor Signs Constitutional Carry for 18 to 20 Year-Old Adults
On April 2nd, 2019, Governor Brad Little signed HB 206 into law. The bill restores Constitutional Carry for adults aged 18-20 carrying concealed guns in the incorporated areas of the State of Idaho.
Idaho became a member of the Constitutional Carry club in 2016.
The new law is a small, incremental change that is mostly symbolic. Idaho has been a mostly Constitutional Carry state for most of the last 100 years.
As more infringements were called for in Idaho, and passed in some legislatures, the resistance by 2nd Amendment supporters grew. They organized. They formed their own communications networks and their own media.
It is important for ‘ALL’ gun owners to remember that while the national Second Amendment groups can help pass state legislation, it is state 2nd Amendment organizations that do the bulk of the work and hold the bulk of the power.
Constitutional Carry is the state of firearms law when the 2nd Amendment, along with the entire Bill of Rights, was ratified in 1791. At that time, no permits were required for citizens to carry weapons openly or concealed. This legislation clarifies that ‘IF’ you can go to war and die for your country you damn well deserve all of your rights.
Presidential Candidate, Sen. Cory Booker (NJ) is a Disaster on 2nd Amendment Issues
We have all seen Spartacus, Sen. Cory Booker, clamor for media air time as he struggles to become the Democrat nominee for President. It’s important to remember that Booker is from New Jersey. So where has Booker stood on our Constitution and, especially, 2nd Amendment rights?
The answer: He’s bad on them – willing to back arbitrary bans on modern multi-purpose semi-automatic firearms and so-called “universal background checks.” Those are the big items. He’s voted against ‘every’ pro-gun piece of legislation. Even when it comes to preventing the denial of 2nd Amendment rights to veterans and citizens who, supposedly, are unable to manage their finances. He even voted against allowing federal funds to be used to train teachers who volunteered for training to better protect their students.
But his awfulness goes further than just taking guns away – bad as that is. Not only is he bad, he’s one of those who signed on to a letter trying to get financial services companies to impose restrictions on 2nd Amendment rights that have gone nowhere in the legislative arena.
It’s a safe bet that is he were to do so, we’d be seeing the same sort of Constitutional abuses that Andrew Cuomo perpetrated in New York, only this time coming from the White House. In addition, you can bet that Booker would be using the bully pulpit of the White House to try to accelerate the social stigmatization of the 2nd Amendment, and to encourage Silicon Valley’s censorship of 2nd Amendment supporters.
You have to wonder, given how Booker talks about gun bans as “common sense” gun control, what does he think about efforts to muzzle the voices of 2nd Amendment supporters? Does he call it “common sense” speech control? If anything, Booker’s seeming embrace of the Cuomo tactics speaks to a tacit admission that he can’t refute the facts, including those pesky Justice Department statistics that seem to put the lie to the claims behind his push to ban modern multi-purpose semi-automatic firearms. Whoops – was mentioning that rifles of all types killed only about 25 percent as many people as knives in 2017 worthy of government censorship?
Anti-Gun Mercenary Academic and Research Hack Fails to Critique His Own Logic
I’ve often given myself a headache trying to come to grips with the liberal mindset. It’s tough to do, and honestly, I’m not sure I’ll ever fully get a grasp on their mental process.
Recently, a study commissioned by Boston University’s School of Public Health’s Michael Siegel and published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine provided results that read like a gun banner wish list right out of the pocket of billionaire Michael Bloomberg. Not surprising except for one notable quote from Siegel himself during an interview about his results:
“Although I completely understand the desire to ban assault weapons, I just don’t see empirical evidence that such bans have any substantial impact on homicide rates. These bans are most often based on characteristics of guns that are not directly tied to their lethality.”
Of course, while his study praised so-called red flag laws and universal background checks as effective in reducing violence, I took note of his opening sentence. Siegel claims to “completely understand the desire to ban assault weapons” in the same statement in which he acknowledged such bans to be ineffective. WAT? So, riddle me this: How can an educated man, (and he is an educated man), understand “the desire to ban” something that he has found will not provide the “desired” results?
It would seem to me that an intellectually honest educated man without an agenda would use this opportunity to educate those not as intelligent as he.
In other words, the next time someone screeches their “desire to ban assault weapons” in his presence, he would take the opportunity to fill that person in on his findings and explain to that person that Americans have a right to bear arms and that person's “desires” come from being misinformed. He would continue that it is illogical to “desire to ban” something that is not a problem and advise that person to focus on the things that can actually reduce crime, such as working towards eliminating gang violence in Democrat-controlled urban environs.
If anyone were to ever accuse him (Siegel) of wanting to take away Americans guns, he would vehemently deny it and use his own study as proof. The problem is, he won’t, and he can’t, because you see, Siegel “completely understands the desire to ban assault weapons” even in the face of his own findings and his own words – that doing so has no impact on anything.
It seems Siegel’s slip of the tongue there just confirms his placement as a soldier of the army involved in the left's war on our Right To Bear Arms. Knowing that fact we should all consider ‘any’ of his studies to be tainted especially ones that pertain to our Right To Bear Arms.
There is NO Such Thing as “Gun Violence”
There is ‘no’ such thing as “gun violence” – it is a purely prejudicial term. There is also no such thing as knife violence, car violence, alcohol violence, etc. Violence is perpetrated by an individual or group. The tool used is irrelevant.
Most articles about so-called ‘gun violence’ are written as if to justify positions that the authors don’t recognize or accept aren’t true. Let’s break it down:
- Suicide, whether involving firearms or not, is an act of desperation, remorse, inability to accept circumstances, or choosing to avoid a situation that the individual cannot control.
- The literature is replete with data about other countries’ numbers and rates of suicide. Culture strongly influences rates as well as the preferred mechanisms. Suicide by firearm makes up approximately half of United States firearm associated deaths.
- Justifiable homicide falls into the category of self-defense, including law enforcement action. Whether it involves firearms, conducted electrical weapons, blunt objects, pointed objects or blades, or hands makes no difference in the end.
- These make up 20 to 25% of firearms associated deaths. These outcomes are socially and culturally acceptable.
- There are small and declining numbers of accidental firearm deaths in the United States.
- That leaves approximately 25% of firearms associated deaths due to criminal activity. More than half of these occur in just a few of our large cities and are associated with gang activity and other drug or sex trafficking crime.
With that basic information on the table, the question becomes: What to do about violence? The emphasis on firearms is the proverbial red herring. The problem is not firearms, knives, or tire irons in the hands of the police or honest citizens.
The supposed intent, leaving aside Constitutional prejudice, of much of the literature on “gun violence” is to design laws that will inhibit criminals from obtaining firearms. That idea is either mistaken or malicious. No law will prevent a criminal from breaking the law. That is what defines “criminal”. The only purpose of laws is to punish people for violating them, which may be of some deterrence. Until human nature becomes angelic, there will be the need to punish criminal behavior.
By definition, honest people are not criminals, so the only purpose of such laws can be to harass honest people. To paraphrase Ayn Rand in Atlas Shrugged: “The government cannot control honest people. The government can only control criminals. Therefore the plan is to pass laws that no one can obey and make everyone criminals. Then the government can control everyone.”
The emphasis on firearms by many of our politicians and academics represents their blatant failure to grasp reality. Life circumstances do not explain the venality of Bernie Madoff, the pederasty of some clergy, or the violence of gangs. They have all chosen to manipulate and control people criminally. A firearm is a tool some use to exercise that control, nothing more or less.
Our laws ‘must’ be based on the moral principles of just and ‘free’ society. Abusive behavior toward other human beings is the problem, not the tools used in doing so.
How to Interact with a Legislator: Maj Toure of Black Guns Matter does an EXCELLENT job of pressuring Rep. Mary Isaacson on the issue of Rep. Cruz’ anti-gun bill HB 768.
Take a moment and watch a respectful way of dealing with a 2 dimensional ill-informed state Rep. who is clueless on the Constitution. (PS click on her name above and see all the other anti-gun bills she co-sponsored)
https://www.facebook.com/blackgunsmattermajtoure/videos/403063400524224/
Videos: Join FOAC at the PA Leadership Conference as we rip into the failure of gun control and the illegal acts of the City of Pittsburgh:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=q5mJdhTCmOc
Founding Fathers Statement on Freedom: "A militia when properly formed are in fact the people themselves…and include, according to the past and general usuage of the states, all men capable of bearing arms… "To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them." - Richard Henry Lee, Federal Farmer No. 18, January 25, 1788
Yours in Freedom,
Kim Stolfer
