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 July 7th 2019 :: 07/07/2019
**We apologize for this resend but the torrential downpours derailed the sending of this newsletter properly.
When first getting involved in the debate over the Second Amendment, one of the problems I ran into was the sparsity of ‘relevant’ information that was available to individuals who wanted to get politically active. The information that was available was either considered tainted by elected leaders because of its' source or was easily refuted by heavily doctored “anti-gun talking points”. Granted this was in the mid-80s (the proverbial ‘dark ages’ electronically) and that the availability of information was limited by the individual’s determination in pursuing it and that today’s Internet was absent in every regard.
Ever since those days we have continuously advocated that everyone who believes in defending the Right to Keep and Bear Arms should be as informed as possible with the most up-to-date information and that is the reasoning behind the creation of our website so that the tools of the trade, information, can be readily available on every form of communication.
While this may seem to be repetitive, a blog article was just brought to my attention that I want to highlight the experience of a young millennial as he (I think this person is a he?) reached out for a personal meeting with his representative. The link below will take you directly to the entire blog article, which is not very long, which is very worthwhile reading and should give you some idea of how successful the average individual can be with the right information when confronting the lies that have permeated the political process for so long:
https://old.reddit.com/r/Firearms/comments/c9tjso/i_met_with_my_antigun_state_representative_heres/
This one quote, below shows just how important it is to support young people who want to get involved with the materials that they need to be effective.
Due to a new push for civilian disarmament in my state, I decided to do something I've never done before: Personally meet with my state representative to discuss the issues. While getting prepared for this meeting, I found essentially no useful information online. I even contacted the local grassroots group I am a member of, who's monthly newsletter occasionally contains reports of other member's visits, and got nothing useful. Instead, I was sent a list of decades-worn talking points. I already knew my representative would roll their eyes at these given their firm anti-gun leanings. I am writing about my experience to share what I learned by doing, and to hopefully inspire you to do the same.
Key takeaways:
1.) We’re being negatively stereotyped due to our own approach, which hurts our cause.
2.) Don’t assume a representative already knows what's going on legislatively, despite their rhetoric. I was shocked by what mine didn’t know.
3.) Despite being firmly anti-gun, my representative was open and receptive to my proposed solutions, but specifically wanted to understand personal impacts.
The snippet above shows just how frustrated this person felt and not being able to access the information that he wanted/needed in his encounter with the representative. All organizations should make, as their highest priority, information gathering and availability as well as education on that information their highest priority! We have the facts and science on our side as well as the constitutional arguments are now more clear than ever but it doesn’t do any of us any good if that information does not get in the right hands!
Thankfully, the young man who wrote this blog was persistent enough to pursue the information that he needed!
Part of the reason for talking about the above was also sparked by a members’ e-mail about gun owners who do nothing to help protect our Constitutional Rights.
He wrote that these gun owners are Freedom Freeloaders, and feels that this is how Freedom dies, one tiny piece at a time when too few want to fight for it until it's too late.
Ask your gun owning friends the following:
- When's the last time your fellow gun owner visited their legislator (state & federal like the millennial above)?
- When's the last time your fellow gun owner made a phone call to them?
- When's the last time your fellow gun owner wrote a letter to them?
- When's the last time your fellow gun owner wrote a 'letter to the editor'?
IF they can't answer those questions then they are Freedom Freeloaders and are sponging off the 2nd amendment welfare wagon. This FOAC member is ‘very’ frustrated by the cavalier attitude of his gun owner friends. (ed. Note: I’ll bet ‘he’ gets into some spirited discussions with them!)
LEGAL UPDATE: Mental Health Commitments and Restoration of Rights
I am honored to announce, after fighting the U.S. Government over this issue for several years, that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) has conceded that a grant of state relief in relation to a prior mental health commitment is sufficient to relieve the individual of any prohibition under federal law.
In issuing the July 1, 2019 ATF Certification of Qualifying State Relief from Disabilities Program form, both the ATF and Pennsylvania State Police have concluded that Pennsylvania’s mental health relief program is sufficient for purposes of the NICS Improvement Amendments Act (NIAA) and therefore an individual who obtains state relief from an involuntary mental health commitment (i.e. Section 302, 303, 304…etc commitment) is relieved of any disability under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(4).
Thus, if you have been involuntarily committed in Pennsylvania, a grant of state relief will now relieve both your state and federal disabilities, permitting you to purchase, possess and utilize firearms and ammunition.
If you or someone you know has been involuntarily committed and wish to restore your rights, contact Firearms Industry Consulting Group today to discuss YOUR rights and legal options.
Mass Shootings by the Numbers, What You’ve Been Told is a Lie
Have you noticed that only mass shootings, where an AR style firearm is used, are the only ones covered by the fake news, like CNN? The purpose of bending the coverage of shootings of all types is to move public opinion, otherwise defined as propaganda. Gun control is a political tool to scare suburban white women to vote for Democrats.
Here are the actual numbers and statistics for mass shooting in the US from 1998 through 2018.
Here are the two big TRUTHS the left is lying about.
- Nearly 80% of mass shootings do NOT use an “so-called Assault Rifle”
- Gun Control laws have NO effect on mass shootings.
Only 15 of the 67 events involved an “AR style” firearm; they are used in less than 22% of mass shootings. Only 13% of all mass shootings used rifles ‘only’ (including but not limited to AR style rifles).
Gun Laws Have No Effect on Mass Shootings
California and Florida both have the greatest number of mass shootings (6 each). The State, with the most restrictive gun laws and the State with the most open gun laws both suffered the same number of mass killings. Exclude the Pulse Night Club shooting, and CA has more casualties than Florida too.
So, the left lies about mass shootings. Liberal politicians lie about mass shootings. Why do they lie? To scare suburban white women (who voted 51% for Trump) to be scared enough to vote against their interests and elect one of the anti-gun Democrats for President.
These stats come from the CPRC (Crime Prevention Research Center) and Dr. John Lott for making the raw statistics available. If you have an opportunity, you can donate to them to help keep the facts and truth available to the common citizen. The left is entitled to its own opinion, not its own facts.
Gun-Control is the Exact Opposite of what ‘This’ World Needs
Everyone has their own perspective, but some beliefs are more accurate than others. That is certainly true about gun-control. Do we have too little gun-control, or too much? Do we have too few firearms regulations or too many? Do most people even have ANY idea of how many gun laws and regulations exist?
Our answers say a lot about us, but the facts about gun-control can be confusing.
We don’t have to guess about the real world because we can look for ourselves and see what works and what fails.
We disarm law-abiding people who want to carry a concealed firearm in public. We disarmed them by charging them hundreds of dollars for their carry permit. We disarmed them by costing them days of training. We disarmed them by the bureaucracy taking months to get them their license. About 11 million people said it wasn’t worth the time, money and hassle. About 5 million more of us were disarmed in states that deny almost all concealed carry applications. By a conservative estimate, gun-control disarmed 16 million good guys. Some people claim that we’re safer now that those 16 million law-abiding people have been disarmed. We don’t have to guess.
We can ask how many of these disarmed people were injured each year because the state disarmed them. Self-defense is real. We can approach the estimates from several observations.
What are the costs when we turn the good guys into disarmed victims?
We have data from the Center for Disease Control on rape and sexual assault where the victim survived the attack (non-fatal injury data). They recorded about 300 thousand sexual assaults in 2017. They know how many assaults were reported by victims over 21 years of age and thus by victims eligible to carry a firearm in public. By doing a little math it is easy to calculate that 27 thousand of the victims were both of eligible age and were attacked outside their home where a carry permit is required.
That is important since victims who defend themselves with a gun are almost never raped or killed.
Who is disarmed by gun-control?
Armed defense is similar to sexual assault in that many of the attacks are never reported to the police. Widespread telephone surveys, with tens of thousands of respondents, estimate that between one-out-of-400 to as many as one-out-of-70 adults used a firearm for self-defense.
It is a true tragedy that people were killed at work in a gun-free zone in Virginia last month. It is, also, a tragedy that children were attacked in a gun-free zone where their teachers were disarmed. Let’s take a very hard look at the people who were injured by gun-control before we prescribe more of the same medicine that got them killed.
Putin on Liberalism’s Death
In his interview with the Financial Times, Putin appeared as much an analyst of, as an advocate for, the nationalism and populism that seems to be succeeding the 20th-century liberalism of the West.
Why is liberalism failing? Several causes, said Putin. Among them, its failure to deal with the crisis of the age: mass and unchecked illegal migration. Putin praised Trump's efforts to secure the U.S. border:
“The liberal idea has become obsolete. … (Liberals) cannot simply dictate anything to anyone as they have been attempting to do over the recent decades.”
Such was the confident claim of Putin to the Financial Times on the eve of the G-20 summit that appeared to validate his thesis.
“This liberal idea has become obsolete. It has come into conflict with the interests of the overwhelming majority of the population. … This liberal idea presupposes that … migrants can kill, plunder and rape with impunity because their rights as migrants have to be protected.”
Hmmm….someone quick tell Bernie Sanders and Charles Schumer and Nancy Pelosi!
New Zealand Gun Control Flounders, Gun Owners Rising Up
It appears that New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's gun control push may be weakening.
The Washington Post reported Monday that the hype of restrictive gun control that made New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern a U.S. media sensation three months ago has lost momentum as that nation’s gun owners are fighting back.
According to the story, “Growing opposition from New Zealand’s pro-gun groups has complicated efforts to round up the now-banned firearms under a buyback program. Lawsuits are threatened. “Gun-control advocates argue that gun confiscation compensation rates may not be fair and warn of a possible spike in black-market sales,” the story noted. “The government, meanwhile, is faced with a sobering set of challenges over how to enforce the new law.”
It was all brought on by the mid-March attack on two mosques by a lone killer, but the government’s reaction was to penalize every law-abiding citizen in the island nation.
In New Zealand, the Council of Licensed Firearms Owners announced that it will likely mount a court challenge to that nation’s hastily-imposed “buy back” gun control/confiscation program. What else can one call a mandate to turn in firearms for cash?
Gun control on a government scale doesn’t target criminals, it targets everybody in the belief that the restrictions—whatever they are—will ultimately affect everyone. Except that’s not how it works out, critics have repeatedly explained.
But there’s another aspect of the situation in New Zealand that “Yank” gun owners here in the states find interesting. Kiwi gun owners apparently own a lot of un-registered guns. According to the Washington Post story, the co-founder of Gun Control NZ acknowledged, “These weapons are unlikely to be confiscated by police because they don’t know of their existence.”
Authorities in the country are planning almost 200 “collection events” over the next three months. And one police official, Mike Clement, deputy commissioner of national operations for the New Zealand police, told the newspaper, “We urge people to stay calm…We acknowledge that you’re a law-abiding citizen and through no fault of your own you know find yourself in possession of firearms that are now illegal.”
He reminded the newspaper that there is an “amnesty period,” so there will be no excuse for retaining the now-contraband firearms.
This scenario is hauntingly familiar with what some U.S. gun rights advocates have been preaching for years. A law is passed, the bureaucracy tells people there is nothing about which to be alarmed, but turn in your guns or you’ll be in violation.
This is all very ironic for history-minded American gun owners. This week marks the nation’s 243rd anniversary of independence, a feat that could not have been possible had not those colonials been armed, which is essentially why the Second Amendment is enshrined in this country’s Bill of Rights.
Politicians From Both Parties Want Federal Money to Fund State Gun Control
At the heart of this is a critical distinction; “Federal grants” means money taken from you will be used to finance state-level gun control.
US Senator Edward Markey and Congressman Joe Kennedy (MA-04), and Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (MA-07), ALL from Massachusetts, have introduced the Making America Safe and Secure (MASS) Acts (S.2014 & H.R.3569, respectively) , legislation that would financially incentivize states to adopt gun-licensing standards similar to those, supposedly, proven effective in Massachusetts. “The MASS Act would authorize the Department of Justice to make funding available to states that implement and maintain comprehensive licensing standards for gun owners and dealers.”, a Monday Markey press release announces.
“Massachusetts has comprehensive gun licensing laws, and not coincidentally, one of the lowest gun death rates in the nation,” Markey claims. “Among the most effective of Massachusetts’s laws are the firearms licensing requirements under which local chiefs of police, or an authorized designee of the department, must determine whether to approve the issuance of a firearms license … Police chiefs also have tools to revoke or suspend a license if they find that someone should not be allowed to continue to hold a license.”
The “correlation implies causation” logical fallacy is strong in the gun-grabbers, and they’re counting on anyone ignorant enough to fall for their misdirection. It’s got them where they are so far, so why not? We can’t depend on our ‘fake news’ to pierce the ‘smoke and mirrors’ lies and inform the public!
It is patently wrong to conclude that Massachusetts gun laws have “proven effective” and that they’re the main factors behind the claimed 40 percent reduction in so-called “gun deaths” since 1994 is an exercise in misdirection. As usual, it depends on where you look. If it’s Boston, last October they were reporting a “20 percent increase in fatal shootings…”
The thought that those doing the murdering give a damn about “firearm licensing requirements” or are going to submit themselves to being interviewed by police chiefs for fitness is absurd on its face. As is the presumption that the licensing is what keeps the “law-abiding” peaceable.
The thing is, Democrats aren’t the only ones trying to get the feds to fund state infringements: U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, his buddy U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, and the Red Flag Republicans want to do exactly that with their “extreme risk protection order” gun confiscation scheme.
If some activist federal judge says what gets passed in California, or New Jersey, or Hawaii, New York or Massachusetts is close enough, hey, gun owners had their day in court. Right?
And the other thing is, the feds aren’t really funding anything. We are. They’ll be taking our money, coerced from those of us in the productive sector, and feeding it to those doing the disarming. If you’re a gun owner who disagrees and objects, too bad.
Hey, if the government can license rights, why shouldn’t it also be able to make gun owners help finance citizen disarmament? Especially when such tactics are “proven effective”…?
Read Markey’s proposed Intolerable Act here. While it’s unlikely to be enacted now, after the 2020 election we may be looking at a whole new set of immediate threats and a whole new set of limitations on “legal” means of redress.
4th of July Flag-Burning at White House Interrupted by Marine Veteran
At least three Revolutionary Communist Party supporters were detained outside the White House after burning two American flags on the Fourth of July.
The Secret Service detained flag-burning activist Gregory "Joey" Johnson and at least two allies in the aftermath. The agency says two men have been charged.
A Marine veteran grabbed a half-burned flag after it ignited on Pennsylvania Avenue around 5 p.m.
Watch the Flag Burning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_Eo6LjjGpM
Kind of makes you wonder why Bernie Sanders is so quiet doesn’t it?!
1st Point to Ponder: Sen. Schumer has been in DC since 1981 and Congresswoman Pelosi has been in DC since 1987; Trump has been there for two years. Both Schumer and Pelosi blame Trump for America’s Problems!??????????
2nd Point to Ponder: The government sent more troops and armament to arrest Roger Stone than they sent to defend Benghazi.
Another Reason I DON’T go to Starbucks: Snowflakes feeling threatened by police?? REALLY??????? So just who do they call when their house is broken into or they are attacked – Ghostbusters?????????????????
Founding Father’s Statement on Freedom: "The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government." James Madison, 1788
Yours in Freedom,
Kim Stolfer, President
