PA Bill Number: HR541
Title: Recognizing the month of October 2024 as "Domestic Violence Awareness Month" in Pennsylvania.
Description: A Resolution recognizing the month of October 2024 as "Domestic Violence Awareness Month" in Pennsylvania.
Last Action: Reported as committed
Last Action Date: Oct 1, 2024
More gun restrictions wouldn't have stopped church shooting :: 11/25/2017
The terrible news about the Sutherland Springs First Baptist Church mass shooting was just coming out when last week’s column was being written. Now we know a lot more about how the murderer acquired his guns.
We now know that the murderer was convicted of two counts of domestic abuse which are disqualifiers for firearms possession. We know that after serving his ridiculously short 12-month U.S. Air Force court martial jail term that he started purchasing guns, the first from an Academy store in Colorado, followed by at least three purchases elsewhere. In each of these instances, the murderer committed a felony by checking the box on the federal purchase form that he was not convicted of a domestic violence crime.
The reason the FBI background check system did not catch him, was that the Air Force judge advocate general never entered the convictions into the FBI criminal database. The newest lame excuse is that the terminology the Air Force uses does not exactly match the federal law’s language. Sorry, that’s the dumbest excuse I’ve ever heard for failing to protect the public.
At least two law-abiding Texan heroes, one with an AR-15, the other with a pickup, were able to wound the miscreant and chase him down to his pathetic death.
But there was another mass shooting in Texas last week that did not garner much attention. In this awful shooting, a man fired indiscriminately along a stretch in Travis County. A 7-year-old girl was struck in the head by one of the man’s bullets and is in critical condition. This man, Rolando Martinez, 25, was at the Nocturno Nightclub and then departed to fire at people at random.
It seems that Martinez is also a person prohibited from owning a gun. He is an undocumented immigrant, and every single one of them is prohibited from even touching a firearm or ammunition. Does that stop them? For that matter, does that stop any criminal? Martinez is being held in Travis County jail on $1 million bond. Oh, and he has a federal hold on him, too, thank goodness.
Back in 2007, a 7-year-old boy in Hays County was killed while bouncing on a trampoline in his back yard. The .22 caliber bullet came from the rifle of a neighbor who was “target practicing” without a proper bullet stop.
Our Bastrop County Commissioners Court under Democrat Judge Ronnie McDonald pushed-through regulations authorized by state law which prohibited the discharge of a firearm property of less than five acres in size. Travis County transplants complained that they could hear gunfire on occasion and were so afraid. None of the new Bastrop County residents could not identify where the shots originated, who was shooting, nor claim any damage. Nonetheless, the commissioners court passed the restriction.
Does anyone honestly know of a way to prevent criminals from obtaining and using guns illegally? I read one columnist who suggests firearms confiscation (theft), forced buy-back (compensated theft), and outright total prohibition. None of these liberty-stealing methods prevent bad people from doing bad things with guns. They like to point to England and Australia for examples of success, but just the opposite is true. If guns are not used by criminals there (and they still are), knives, clubs and acid are substituted.
Is one civil right more important than another? Guns are licensed in some places. Should not printing presses be licensed, too? Repeating arms were not yet invented at the time the Bill of Rights was ratified. Was the Internet?
Gun haters, be careful what you wish for.
