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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 Weekly Message For Sunday February 3rd 2019 :: 02/03/2019
In this week’s newsletter we're going to try to get into the absolute deluge of things that have been happening that will affect your right to bear arms and self-defense!
The last week has seen a ratcheting up of rhetoric in the fight against the city of Pittsburgh preemption law violations that are being planned. The mayor has openly stated that this illegal effort is not going to cost taxpayers any money which may be the biggest lie of the week! From the public rally to the public hearing it is clear the city has spent thousands of dollars if not more just on police protection alone. The mayor was trying to refer to the fact that apparently several attorneys are going to offer their services pro bono to try and protect the constitutional rapists (Mayor Peduto and city Council) from being held accountable in court. Time will tell how far this particular lie will get them!
The propaganda war with the city of Pittsburgh also continues with the mayor and Councilman O’Connor both seeking public sympathy for, supposed, death threats they say they’ve received. Since the media has allowed them to simply make this accusation without any proof it seems that it would be fair to cry foul here since they are demagogy on this as well! There is no notice of arrests or prosecution of anyone so one has to wonder what kind of game Peduto and his cronies are playing!
The media also continues to try and belittle the reasoning behind our efforts to hold the city accountable for following the law. This is especially true considering the fact that there are two separate efforts that are trying to hold Peduto accountable. One effort is to impeach him using the home rule charter and the other is to file private criminal complaints against Peduto with the District Attorney’s Office. These efforts are in addition to the fact that we intend to take the city to court should gun-control bills be voted on and signed by the mayor.
Prior to the vote on this legislation there will be what is called a post agenda meeting and that is being coordinated by Councilwoman Darlene Harris. This meeting will be a roundtable discussion that will be held in Council chambers on February 12 at 1:30 PM. We are bringing in Dr. John Lott to try and explain to city Council and the mayor that what they are doing is not only illegal but it is also counterproductive and will lead to more deaths and not less. This meeting will be open to the public but not for testimony. If you can find your way to join us on February 12 in the city Council chambers please do try and make it!
Anti-Gun Politicians Delivering on Promises of Socialist Legislation
We’ve all heard the rumors that the Democrats are going to attack the right to keep and bear arms at every level and that certainly seems true! Thus far at the state level there have been 12 anti-gun bills introduced at the house and Senate level. At the federal level it’s even worse, for there have been 22 anti-gun bills introduced.
Later on, in this newsletter there will be an article about the upcoming battle this week in the U.S. Congress over Universal Background Checks (HR 8).
Website Legislation Search Upgrade (Tags)
We recognize that many gun owners are looking in specific for certain pieces of legislation and that the search can be very overwhelming. So, what we have started doing is to apply tags for certain issues to each piece of legislation for easy searching and grouping.
The picture below (it's not active box) shows the box you will see in the right-hand corner of each page for the various legislation whether it be at the Statehouse or State Senate or federal house and federal Senate.
All you have to do is click the arrow on the box and there will be a drop-down menu that allows you to search for all legislation related to that particular issue. Please take a moment and try it out and let us know what you think at info@FOACPAC.org.
Are we Losing or Winning the 2A battle?
We are losing in some ways, while we're winning and advancing in others. One of, if not ‘the’ greatest dangers we face is the loss of focus on core principles. It's challenging to stick to principles in the face of some horrendous tragedy and overwhelming political and media opposition, but that's when those principles are most important. While it can be acceptable to cede some ground to avoid losing even more, it is critically important that we don't surrender our core principles as part of a political concession.
There are always two factors in play in rights advocacy: Legislative, and Electoral.
To win legislative battles, we need elected politicians who agree with our positions on the Constitution. It is indeed a delicate balancing act. If we push too hard with legislation, we run the risk of alienating these politicians or alienating their political constituents. If we don't push hard enough, we run the risk of alienating our fellow activists and hurting the politicians' chances of being reelected. On top of that, some ‘pro-2nd Amendment’ organizations ill-conceived statements on bump-stocks and Extreme Risk Protection Orders have created a difficult situation in Washington and in Pennsylvania because they failed to stick by core principles of Freedom.
Let’s be frank: Former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg is one of the most dangerous threats to our Right to Keep and Bear Arms rights. He has a lot of money, and he uses it to prop up flailing anti-gun groups and push an anti-Right to Keep and Bear Arms agenda that would make Stalin proud. He gets a lot of help from Hollywood and a large chunk of the media. It’s a very formidable alliance.
Sadly, he also gets help from some 2nd Amendment supporters. Now, I don’t think any 2nd Amendment supporter wakes up, and asks, “What can I do to help Bloomberg take away our 2nd Amendment rights?” No, this help is unintentionally provided, often when that 2nd Amendment supporter is trying to protect our right to keep and bear arms.
Let’s get one thing out of the way: Michael Bloomberg – and those who support him – are in the wrong when it comes to our Right to Keep and Bear Arms rights. Their agenda punishes law-abiding citizens who wish to exercise those rights for the horrific misdeeds of a very small number of people. Furthermore, their proposals don’t work and science shows they never have, yet they continue to demand we give up more of our rights – again in the name of an elusive blanket of “safety” that government cannot provide.
We have a right to be angry with Bloomberg, Schumer, Feinstein, and others who are pushing an anti-Right to Keep and Bear Arms agenda. We have a right to be angry that we get labeled as “child killers” or “domestic terrorists” when we rightly point out that banning the AR-15 (or other modern sporting rifles) and imposing “universal background checks” will not solve the problem and would only punish millions of law-abiding citizens.
Anger and Frustration is a two-edged sword.
While it can motivate people to take action to protect their rights, it can also cause a lot of damage to what you are trying to protect. How many times have you said something in anger that you later regretted? Even when you apologize, there is still damage done that can never quite go away. Furthermore, the person you blew up at may not be willing to listen to you later, when things have calmed down. But it goes beyond the one-on-one interaction.
Sadly, letting anger get the best of us is not the only way that some Right to Keep and Bear Arms supporters are unintentionally aiding Bloomberg. It’s also an inability to find a way to address some situations.
The cold, hard truth is that you can’t beat something with nothing.
If all Right to Keep and Bear Arms supporters do is say no to bad solutions, and they don’t have a good answer when they are asked if they have an alternative, many of the folks in ‘middle America’ that Bloomberg’s propaganda machine is actively recruiting as donors and activists will end up backing the push for “red flag” laws, and then sign on to his agenda.
Here’s another piece of cold, hard, truth: Some of these things we have to deal with won’t have easy answers. If the “red flag” laws are a bad idea (and as proposed by anti-gunners, they are), then we need to think of alternatives that will accomplish the same thing – and not infringe on our 2nd Amendment rights – or additional safeguards. For instance, the PA Mental Health Procedures Act (MHPA) can be used to get individuals treatment to help them while ERPO’s/Red Flag laws are focused on ‘only’ taking firearms. PA House members are working on fixing the MHPA right now.
Defending the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is hard work. Right to Keep and Bear Arms supporters have to know their facts, they face a hostile media and all the while preparing the next generation. All that is hard enough without giving Bloomberg and his anti-gun minions an unintentional assist.
US Congress to Consider Gun Control Feb. 4 - 8
On January 8, two bills were introduced in Congress to impose so-called "universal" background checks. The bills, H.R. 8 and S. 42, are being misleadingly described as simply requiring background checks on all sales of firearms, but this is just a small part of what these overbroad pieces of legislation would do.
Summary
HR8 requires that loans, gifts, and sales of firearms be processed by a gun store. The same fees, paperwork, and permanent record-keeping apply as to buying a new gun from the store. If you loan a gun to a friend without going to the gun store, the penalty is the same as for knowingly selling a gun to a convicted violent felon. Likewise, when the friend returns the gun, another trip to the gun store is necessary, upon pain of felony.
A clever trick in HR8 effectively bans handguns for persons 18-20 years old.
The bill has some narrow exemptions. The exemptions do not cover stalking victims. Also excluded are farming and ranching, sharing guns on almost all public and private lands, and storing guns with friends while on vacation. The limited exemption for family excludes first cousins and in-laws. The minuscule exemption for self-defense excludes stalking victims.
The bill authorizes unlimited fees to be imposed by regulation.
This legislation won’t stop criminals, but it does create many traps for law-abiding gun owners to unwittingly violate the law.
Traps for Law-Abiding Gun Owners
Both bills would make it a crime, subject to certain exceptions, to simply hand a firearm to another person. Any time gun owners carry out this simple act, they would potentially be exposing themselves to criminal penalties. While the bills do create some exceptions, they are overly complicated and create many traps for unwary gun owners. Accidental violations of these complicated provisions are not excused under the proposed legislation.
Expanded Background Checks Don’t Work
Proponents of so-called “universal” background checks claim that this legislation is the “most important” thing that can be done to stop dangerous people from obtaining firearms. This is a lie. There is no evidence that expanded background checks are useful for this purpose.
Just last year, a study by anti-gun researchers confirmed that expanded background checks in California did not reduce gun homicides or gun suicides.
What is interesting is the remarkable consistency of the rate that criminals obtained their guns from gun shows (a copy of the earlier report is available here).
One problem with using these surveys is that people think that if one were to actually stop all criminals from obtaining guns from gun shows or through some other way, that will actually stop the criminals from getting guns. Yet, even when there are complete bans on guns criminals are still able to obtain them. Given how much of violent crime is drug gang related and given how hard it is to stop drug gangs from getting illegal drugs to sell, it is just as difficult to stop these drug gangs from getting the guns that they need to protect their very valuable drugs. Thus, it isn’t too surprising that background checks on private transfers has beneficial no impact on crime rates (see here or here).
Gun show regulations do have a cost. Almost everyone all those stopped by background checks are false positives — a law-abiding citizen who shouldn’t have been stopped. Other delays extend beyond the length of the gun show — the delays can usually take up to three business days to clear and gun shows only last for two days over a weekend.
In 2013, the Department of Justice’s National Institute of Justice researched so-called “universal” background checks and determined that they would not be effective without further harsh firearms restrictions and efforts to combat straw purchasing.
Criminals are not deterred by background checks. ATF has reported, “[t]he most frequent type of trafficking channel identified in ATF investigations is straw purchasing from federally licensed firearms dealers. Nearly 50 percent ... .” A Chicago-area inmate explained this reality to researchers from the University of Chicago in relation to Illinois’s stringent firearm licensing regime for a 2015 study, stating, “All they need is one person who got a gun card in the ‘hood’ and everybody got one.”
A 2016 Department of Justice survey of “state and federal prisoners who had possessed a firearm during the offense for which they were serving” found that the most common source of prisoner firearms was “Off the street/underground market.” This was defined as “Illegal sources of firearms that include markets for stolen goods, middlemen for stolen goods, criminals or criminal enterprises, or individuals or groups involved in sales of illegal drugs.” Less than one percent had obtained their firearm from a gun show.
Please call your U.S. Congress Critter, using the Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121 and tell them you oppose HR 8 and Universal Background Checks.
Think Local Media - And Get Them on Your Side
Media bias is something we as Right to Keep and Bear Arms supporters often complain about and have to deal with. However, much of this bias is in the national news networks. ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and MSNBC are all bombarding us with hostility. The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and other newspapers also join in.
But while these are some of the biggest outlets in news, they are not the only media outlets in the United States. There are many local TV stations and your local newspapers – and these are a key way to help get past the national media’s anti-Right to Keep and Bear Arms bias in the short to medium term, while also improving long-term prospects to improve the national media climate.
Think about this: The national news broadcast outlets (ABC, CBS, NBC) usually have two hours in the morning and a half-hour newscast in the evening. But your local stations have the same two hours in the morning, a half-hour before the late-night shows and an hour and a half of local news in the evening before the national evening newscasts.
So, in essence, local TV stations have twice the air time of the national media. Furthermore, their reporters are far more accessible to their viewers than the national reporters. The reporters are always looking for stories – so why not use their desire for stories to help get the truth about Right to Keep and Bear Arms issues out there? This is something that will provide both short-term and long-term benefits.
The short-term benefits are that the local news will feature more accurate and honest coverage of Right to Keep and Bear Arms issues. This will help to counteract the bias from the national outlets. In essence, these local journalists will, at a minimum, help reduce the chances of anti-Right to Keep and Bear Arms activists successfully carrying out a social stigmatization strategy.
The local newspapers operate in much the same way, Here, there may be less room for a story, but good relationships with the reporters will help get the facts out as well. Your local paper may also be more likely to print letters to the editor or opinion pieces on Right to Keep and Bear Arms issues. And, as is the case with the TV reporters, the local reporters will be more accessible as they look for stories. One other benefit: These local papers have an effective monopoly. This is what your neighbors and friends will be reading – not the Washington Post or New York Times.
Finally, there are those reporters who will move up to bigger markets, possibly even a national profile. Here, there is a possibility that they will maintain a fair approach to the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
South Dakota becomes latest state to allow concealed handguns without permit
South Dakota has become the latest state to remove permit requirements for gun owners to carry and conceal their weapons.
The state’s new Republican governor, Kristi Noem, signed SB 47 into law Thursday. The legislation permits residents to legally carry a firearm concealed on their person so long as they are allowed to possess one.
The bill passed the state Senate by a 23-11 vote and the state House by a vote of 47-23, reports said. In a tweet, Noem said the new law reflects the vision of the Founding Fathers and protects Right to Keep and Bear Arms gun rights.
"Our Founding Fathers believed so firmly in our right to bear arms that they enshrined it into the Constitution," the governor tweeted. "This constitutional carry legislation will further protect the Right to Keep and Bear Arms rights of law-abiding South Dakotans."
Democrats and law enforcement officials opposed the new law, calling for it to be limited to South Dakota residents, according to the Hill.
Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun-control group, called the legislation dangerous and said it would have devastating effects, the Washington Free Beacon reported.
Anti-Gun Candidate for Prez – Kamala Harris – Wants to Make “California Gun Laws” the Law of the Land in America
What a difference a few years makes! Back in 2016, the media was telling us that Donald Trump was a dangerous conspiracy theorist kook for claiming that Democrats want to take all our guns away and abort babies right up until the last day of the ninth month of gestation.
For those who don’t know, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) learned the rough-and-tumble ins and outs of backroom politics by studying long and hard under former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown.
Kamala Harris has jumped out to the front of the pack of 40-plus Democrat contenders for the nomination so far. We realize it’s still a long way out and a lot can happen between now and then… but look what happened the last time we all underestimated an affirmative-action special needs candidate.
Plus, a new poll shows that if President Trump fails to build a wall on the southern border, thus fulfilling his main campaign promise, 43% of his base will not vote for his reelection. That’s way more than the Democrats need to pull off a victory in 2020 and explains why Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer have dug in so deeply in opposing “the immorality” of a wall.
In her long and rambling scripted responses to scripted questions, Kamala Harris reiterates that semiautomatic firearms (which would include most handguns) need to be confiscated and banned to protect babies and cops.
It’s easy to try to dismiss Harris because she sounds like a nut. But it would be dangerous to underestimate her. She’s a younger and more authoritarian version of Hillary. And given the track record of Democrat voters, it looks like she’s a viable candidate.
Racism in Reverse
Rush Limbaugh’s December 2018 Limbaugh Letter has an article titled “Demonizing White Men.” It highlights — with actual quotations from people in the media, academia and the political and entertainment arenas — the attack on white men as a class. You can decide whether these statements are decent, moral or even sensible.
Don Lemon: CNN anchorman: “We have to stop demonizing people and realize the biggest terror threat in this country is white men, most of them radicalized to the right, and we have to start doing something about them.”
Steven Clifford, former King Broadcasting CEO: “I will be leading a great movement to prohibit straight white males, who I believe supported Donald Trump by about 85 percent, from exercising the franchise (to vote), and I think that will save our democracy.”
Teen Vogue Magazine: “Not only is white male terrorism as dangerous as Islamic extremism, but our collective safety rests in rooting out the source of their radicalization.”
Economist Paul Krugman: NYT columnist: “The Angry White Male Caucus,” in which he explained, “Trumpism is all about the fear of losing traditional privilege.”
Stacey Patton: a Morgan State University professor: “There is nothing more dangerous in the United States than a white man who has expected to succeed and finds himself falling behind.” Stony Brook University sociology professor Michael Kimmel: “White men’s anger comes from the potent fusion of two sentiments: entitlement and a sense of victimization.”
Then there’s the political arena.
Sen. Bernie Sanders: “There’s no question that in Georgia and in Florida racism has reared its ugly head. And you have candidates who ran against (Andrew) Gillum and ran against Stacey Adams who were racist. … And that is an outrage.”
Former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm: “What troubles me is … they’re all white men,” commented regarding GOP senators questioning Christine Blasey Ford at the Kavanaugh hearings. William Falk, editor-in-chief of The Week, said, “There’s something odd about the overwhelming white maleness of Washington’s current leadership.”
Then there’s Hollywood.
Joy Behar, talking on ABC’s “The View” about senators supporting Kavanaugh, said: “These white men — old, by the way — are not protecting women. They’re protecting a man who is probably guilty.”
Actress Gabourey Sidibe, also on “The View,” said: “Older white men are a problem, y’all, for everyone. We’re all at risk.”
Moira Donegan wrote an article for The Guardian titled “Half of white women continue to vote Republican. What’s wrong with them?”
Renee Graham wrote a column in The Boston Globe that counseled, “Memo to black men: Stop voting Republican.”
Comedian Chelsea Handler tweeted, “Just a friendly reminder for the weekend: No white after Labor Day, and no old, white racist men after the midterms. Get out and vote.”
That is just a partial list of statements that would be viewed and condemned as racist simply by replacing “white men” with “black men,” “Mexican men” or “Asian men.”
There are only two ways to explain the silence by people who should know better. Either they agree with the sentiments expressed or they are out-and-out cowards. Decent American people ought to soundly reject and condemn this racist attack on white men.
Videos: FOAC on NRA TV with Dana Loesch on Relentless:
Important Quote: If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government, and which against the usurpations of the national rulers, may be exerted with infinitely better prospect of success than against those of the rulers of an individual state. Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 28, 1787
Yours in Freedom!
Kim Stolfer, President