PA Bill Number: HB1472
Title: In primary and election expenses, further providing for reporting by candidate and political committees and other persons and for late contributions ...
Description: In primary and election expenses, further providing for reporting by candidate and political committees and other persons and for late contrib ...
Last Action: Referred to STATE GOVERNMENT
Last Action Date: Apr 22, 2024
FOAC's Weekly Message For Sunday August 26th 2018 :: 08/26/2018
It will likely come as ‘no’ surprise to you that Gun Control has failed again, this time in Maryland. A pharmacist in Princess Anne, Maryland used his ‘revolver’ to stop criminals who had an AR-15 from killing his customers.
HOW could this have happened in the utopia of gun control laws that were supposed to protect Marylanders? Haven’t the anti-gun groups and their lackeys in legislatures across America (YES, here in PA too) told us that criminals will obey gun laws??? These same Freedom hating misfits ‘ignore’ that a man with a simple revolver stopped the same criminals whom all Maryland’s gun control laws failed to stop!
We see this as an indictment of not only the justice system to hold criminals responsible but ALSO of the tooth-fairy approach to dealing with the violent amongst us that puts ALL law-abiding citizens at risk! HOW many citizens will die when citizens are left at the mercy of the state after being disarmed, we ALL know that is the goal so let’s stop burying our heads in the sand and ignoring their true intentions!
In the Maryland case, two men walked into the pharmacy with ski masks over their faces. The armed robbers pointed their rifle at the nearest cashier. Then the robbers ordered the store staff and customers to lie on the ground. They demanded the store employees’ hand over narcotics from the pharmacy.
The pharmacist came out of his office and saw the attackers threatening his staff and customers.
Here’s the KEY point that Soros, Bloomberg and all the anti-gun groups (like CeaseFire PA) ‘refuse’ to admit, “When he saw my revolver,' Amir (the pharmacist) said, 'he yelled to the other man to run, saying 'He has a gun' and both of them started running away”-the police cannot be there in time to stop violent crime!
So the pharmacist shot at the armed robbers with his legally owned handgun. The robbers ran. It is important to note that anti-gun groups were silent about this incident. These anti-gun/anti-self-defense groups ‘refuse’ to admit that these incidents happen! They would rather see this pharmacist and the customers in the store laying in a pool of blood and surrounded by a chalk outline than admit ‘they’ are wrong! The fact is that ANY politician or anti-gunner who says that gun control laws will protect us from violent criminals is lying. The answer is simple.
Gun Banning politicians lied.
As an after-action analysis let’s break down the many Maryland laws that failed to protect the honest citizens in this incident. Robbery is illegal in Maryland. Conspiring with others to commit robbery is illegal. Using a gun to commit robbery is illegal, and has been for hundreds of years. The criminals don’t read those laws, but criminals had no trouble seeing the store owner’s gun and clearly got the message. The criminals aren’t listening to Maryland’s new gun control regulations, but they heard the gunshot loud and clear.
Given that the subsequent police investigation was conducted by the gang-crimes unit, I’ll bet that the criminals didn’t bother with the required firearms background checks that are required to buy a long gun at a gun store. Does it shock you that criminals don’t obey state and federal gun laws? That the rifle used was illegal under Maryland law??
Gang members don’t consult the Maryland registry of “approved firearms for possession or transfer”. Those laws only infringe on the rights of honest gun owners. Those gun laws disarm law abiding people, but they certainly did not disarm these criminals.
The Maryland assault weapon bans and the Maryland magazine capacity restrictions didn’t stop these gang members from breaking those laws. I’m sure Maryland legislators are aghast that criminals don’t follow their latest regulations. The rest of us told you so.
Honest and law-abiding Maryland citizens can’t carry a loaded firearm in a motor vehicle without a permit like these criminals did as they drove to the pharmacy. Honest citizens can’t carry a loaded gun in public, or carry a concealed firearm without a Maryland Wear and Carry Permit. Unfortunately, most people in Maryland are denied their state-issued wear and carry permits.
Were the gang members disarmed, or were honest citizens disarmed by Maryland gun laws?
A judge didn’t see fit to claim these three gang members, the two robbers and their get-away driver, were a threat to themselves or others. Despite their history of violence, the Maryland “red-flag or extreme risk protection order” law didn’t work to disarm these criminals. At this point, is anyone surprised?
Gun laws don’t disarm criminals, but they do disarm honest citizens. Being disarmed makes us easier victims. When faced with rising armed violent crime, politicians repeat their failed policy prescriptions and propose to disarm more of us because their egos and political pandering won’t let them admit they were wrong! THIS is why we must hold them accountable at the ballot box in November!
How about we ALL try a different approach, let’s learn from this example. Criminals threatened the lives of innocent people. Because he had a gun, the pharmacist stopped the threat even though he was outnumbered and faced large and powerful adversaries. Guns in the hands of honest citizens saved lives and kept dangerous drugs off Maryland streets.
Armed defense saves lives thousands of times a day. We will all be safer when more honest citizens legally own and carry a firearm.
It’s time government ‘trusts’ citizens and respects rights ‘and’ it’s time citizens stop avoiding reality and FIGHT to protect those rights!
Study Finds Over 17 Million Americans with Concealed Handgun Permits
The new study by the Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC) was originally published here. Dr. Lott’s Study finds Over 17 Million Americans with Concealed Handgun Permits and has just issued his newest annual report on the number of concealed handgun permits in the US.
A copy of the report is available for download here. A graph with some updated numbers are shown at the bottom of this post. Past reports can be viewed here. The executive summary is shown here:
Despite the expectations of many after the 2016 elections, the number of concealed handgun permits has again increased. In 2018, the number of concealed handgun permits soared to over 17.25 million – a 273% increase since 2007. 7.14% of American adults have permits. Unlike surveys that may be affected by people’s unwillingness to answer some personal questions, concealed handgun permit data is the only really “hard data” that we have on gun ownership across the United States. Still, an even larger number of people carry because in 14 states people don’t need a permit to carry in all or virtually all those states.
Among the findings of the CPRC report:
- Last year, despite the common perception that growth in the number of permit holders would stop after the 2016 election, the number of permits grew by about 890,000.
- Outside the restrictive states of California and New York, about 8.63% of the adult population has a permit.
- In fifteen states, more than 10% of adults have permits, up from just eleven last year.
- Alabama has the highest rate — 22.1%. Indiana is second with 17.9%, and South Dakota is a close third with 17.2%.
- Four states now have over 1 million permit holders: Florida, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Texas.
- Another 14 states have adopted constitutional carry in all or almost all of their state, meaning that a permit is no longer required. However, because of these constitutional carry states, the nationwide growth in permits does not paint a full picture of the overall increase in concealed carry.
- Permits continued to grow much faster for women and minorities. Between 2012 and 2018, the percent of women with permits grew 111% faster for women and the percent of blacks with permits grew 20% faster than for whites. Permits for Asians grew 29% faster than for whites.
- Concealed handgun permit holders are extremely law-abiding. In Florida and Texas, permit holders are convicted of misdemeanors and felonies at one-sixth of the rate at which police officers are convicted.
The report is available to be downloaded here.
University of Texas Professors Lawsuit Against Campus Carry Rejected by Fifth Circuit Court
A unanimous decision by a three-judge panel of a longshot appeal to the Fifth Circuit, to stop Texas Campus carry, has been rejected. Three hoplophobic professors at the University of Texas had filed the case on novel grounds. From uscourts.gov:
Three professors from the University of Texas at Austin challenged a Texas law permitting the concealed carry of handguns on campus and a corresponding University policy prohibiting professors from banning such weapons in their classrooms. The professors argued that the law and policy violate the First Amendment, Second Amendment, and Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The district court dismissed the claims.
We AFFIRM.
Two years ago, in July of 2016, three academics associated with the University of Texas sued the Texas AG, Ken Paxton, and several University of Texas officials. They were desperately attempting to stop Campus carry in Texas, where some students who had Texas carry permits were allowed to carry personal defensive firearms on campus. The firearms had to be concealed.
A year later, Judge Lee Yeakel dismissed the case, on the grounds that the plaintiffs had not suffered any harm. Therefore, they had no standing to sue. The professors decided to appeal to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. All of the professors are women. One, Dr. Glass, is a Liberal Arts Professor. The other two, Dr. Lisa Moore and Dr. Mia Carter, are professors of English. That may explain their ability to construct the novel arguments used in the case. From mystatesman.com:
Jennifer Lynn Glass, Lisa Moore and Mia Carter argued that their First Amendment right to academic freedom has been violated because free speech is chilled in classrooms out of concern that someone might be carrying a concealed handgun.
They also contended that their Second Amendment rights have been infringed because firearm usage is not sufficiently “well-regulated.” And they said their right to equal protection under the 14th Amendment has been violated because UT lacks a rational basis for deciding where concealed carry is permitted.
A three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously rejected all those arguments Thursday, upholding the July 2017 dismissal of the case by U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel of Austin.
At the Fifth Circuit, the three-judge panel dismissed the appeal because merely claiming you are frightened of a possible outcome does not violate First Amendment protections. The Second Amendment protects the right of individuals to keep and bear arms, not the right of the state to restrict individuals from keeping and bearing arms.
The Fourteen Amendment claim was dismissed under “rational basis”, which the Professors had admitted was the correct level of scrutiny for their claim. They said there was no rational basis for regulations of the University of Texas (insisted on by the State of Texas), which found that concealed carry could be restricted on some places in the University campus, such as research laboratories, but not others. They claimed different regulations on private universities versus public universities, violated equal protection under the law.
The Fifth Circuit panel stated it was easy to find a rational basis for such disparities, such as the protection of private property rights at private universities.
I expect the entire Fifth Circuit would uphold the dismissal by the three-judge panel. The opinion is well argued and rests on solid precedent. The professors have the option of appealing to the Supreme Court. The impending appointment of Judge Kavanaugh by President Trump to the Supreme Court makes a successful Supreme Court appeal less likely.
Education Secretary Considering Allowing States to Arm Teachers
The New York Times, citing multiple people with knowledge of the plan, reported Wednesday evening that the department is focusing on a federal education law that does not explicitly prohibit the purchase of firearms through federal funds called the Student Support and Academic Enrichment grants.
It would be up to DeVos to approve of any such measure, The Times reported.
As was to be expected, former Arizona congresswoman, now anti-gun advocate, Gabrielle Giffords -- who was injured during a 2011 shooting at a meet-and-greet event in Tuscon, Az. – said arming teachers puts “children in even more danger.”
“Arming teachers is not a solution. It recklessly puts American children in even more danger,” Giffords tweeted late Wednesday evening. “We can forge a better path. It’s time for Americans to find the courage to fight for our own safety.”
Anti-gun Senator Murphy (CT) filed an emergency amendment to the Education Funding bill to block the plan to allow states to arm their teachers.
If you would like to register your support for the arming of teachers please call this number at the Dept. of Education a call at 202-401-3000 and leave your message of support for Secretary DeVos.
Each Generation, Interpreting the Text of the Constitution
We are ‘constantly’ told by anti-gun advocates that the Heller decision was a radical reinterpretation of the Second Amendment, a reading that is not to be found anywhere in legal thinking or rulings before 2008. While the case law is thin, in fact, there always have been two understandings of the text: protection of individual rights or collective powers of the state.
It is true to say that the 2008 ruling shifted the presumption away from the claim that ordinary Americans had to prove their need toward one that accepts ownership and carry of firearms as something that belongs to each of us.
Does that negate the impact of the ruling?
To people who favor gun control, it does, though they should ask themselves how far they are willing to go with this line of thinking. The modern reading of several amendments seems apparent to many today, but this is not, in fact, the reality.
Take as an illustration of this the First Amendment. It’s protections of free speech, and a free press is foundational to a democratic society, but that is a measure of enlightenment that has taken us centuries to work out.
In the view of the English jurist, William Blackstone, free speech simply meant that no prior restraint could be imposed. You couldn’t be stopped from speaking your mind, but if what you said displeased those in power, you could be punished afterward. Think of Mel Gibson’s William Wallace shouting, “freedom!” before being relieved of his head.
Initially, the Bill of Rights did not apply to the states. The framers were under the impression, erroneous as it has proved to be, that the states were the more reliable guarantor of fundamental rights. The ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment was, in part, a response to the gap in the protection of rights, and over time, more and more of the first ten amendments have been incorporated under the due process clause of the Fourteenth against the states.
But even then, the old thinking about what free speech means remained until Oliver Wendell Holmes, the turn of the twentieth century’s Anthony Kennedy, went through an evolution of his understanding. Holmes initially had no love for the idea of individual rights. It was his association with Harold Laski, at the time a democratic socialist, and others who convinced him that the promise of the progressive movement could only be fulfilled if each member of a society can offer points of view that are contrary to the settled beliefs of the majority.
All of this is to say that we have gone in a promising direction in our thinking about more than one right. And since each generation must come to terms with what the Constitution means, it’s good to see that we’re headed in the right direction.
The claim is often made that we have a living document as if that excuses any re-imagining that anyone desires, but the life of a free society will last only if the growth we go through preserves and expands the value of individual rights. That growth is to be celebrated, not opposed, and as with the First Amendment, so with the Second, we are going where we must.
Fishermen and Crab Eaters Beware: PETA Puts Up Billboard Telling Marylanders to Stop Eating Crabs
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) put up a billboard in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor featuring a picture of a blue crab with the message “I’m ME, Not MEAT. See the Individual. Go Vegan.”
“Just like humans, crabs feel pain and fear, have unique personalities, and value their own lives,” PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman commented. “PETA’s billboard aims to give Charm City residents some food for thought about sparing sensitive marine animals the agony of being boiled alive or crushed to death in fishing nets simply by going vegan.”
Twitter users and locals reacted pretty much as could be expected to PETA’s efforts to get them to stop eating the Maryland specialty.
“I thought it was fake, honestly,” Tony Minadakis, owner of Jimmy’s Famous Seafood told the Baltimore Sun of the billboard. “I was shocked. It was pretty tone-deaf.”
Delmarva Now notes PETA’s rocky relationship with the Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia area after PETA employees accidentally euthanized a little girl’s healthy pet Chihuahua several years ago.
'That was a mistake,' a PETA spokeswoman emphasized to them, 'It never should have happened. That person is no longer employed by PETA.'
There are apparently also hard feelings over PETA’s calls to put an end to the famous annual Chincoteague Pony swim after a horse’s accidental death.
PETA did score a win recently on another important issue for them. Nabisco 'freed' animal crackers from circus-themed cage packaging, redesigning the packaging as an African landscape at PETA's request.
What’s next preventing the use of worms to fish with??
University of Utah Teacher Segregates Concealed Carriers In Her Class
An instructor at the University of Utah is facing massive backlash after she created a '2nd Amendment zone' in her classroom. Students who legally carried were forced to stand in a corner of the room that was roped off just for them, Campus Reform reported.
The instructor provided her 'weapons policy' to students, which stated:
Concealed carry is protected under your second amendment rights! However, because the University of Utah reserves the right to restrict elements of the first amendment on campus to specifically sanctioned ‘free speech zones’ I am reserving the right to restrict elements of the second amendment in my own classroom.
If you feel that it is somehow at all appropriate to bring a gun to class (hint: it is not—this is absurd, antisocial, and frightening behavior), you are restricted to spending your time in class in my 'second amendment zone' a 3x3 taped square on the floor in the very back of the classroom, that will be shared with all other gun carriers. This zone also does not include a desk, because desks are reserved for students who respect the personal and psychological safety of their classmates and instructor.
Here's what the space looked like:
A spokesperson for the University provided Campus Reform with the following statement:
University of Utah officials recently learned that a graduate teaching assistant included a statement in an undergraduate course syllabus that violated both state law and university policy. The statement has been removed from the syllabus and students in the class have been alerted to the error.
The graduate student instructor has apologized and has received additional training about the university's policies and will not teach this semester and will instead have other assignments.
The approval of course syllabuses is handled by individual departments, and syllabuses are expected to comply with all university policies.
Both university policy and state law allows students to carry a firearm on campus as long as they are licensed to do so.
Yours in Freedom!
Kim Stolfer, President
