Free Republic

Democratic state legislators urged Pittsburghers on Thursday to support a bill that would ban the use of some military-style rifles by everyone except service members and law enforcement personnel. The lawmakers also said hunters in Pennsylvania don’t need the added firepower of semiautomatic rifles, including AR-15-type weapons, even though the Legislature passed a law in 2017 allowing that. The weapons increasingly are being used in mass killings that are “traumatizing today’s children,” said state Rep. Ed Gainey, D-Lincoln-Lemington, at a gathering sponsored by House Democrats at the Carnegie Library in Homewood. He and others called for support of a bill...

WASHINGTON - Could Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey be a Republican bridge who helps secure a deal on background checks on guns? His office confirmed Friday that Toomey, a strong Second Amendment advocate, was in discussions on pending gun bills that have struggled to gain traction with Republicans and many pro-gun Democrats in the Senate. "Sen. Toomey and his staff are talking to a lot of folks - both in Pennsylvania and in the Capitol - on the issue of guns in the hopes that we get to an approach that works," his spokeswoman wrote in an e-mail. There was no...

The state's largest gun control group, CeaseFirePA, is getting a $350,000 grant to strengthen its advocacy efforts statewide. The Chicago-based Joyce Foundation is granting the organization the money over two years to aid its bid to build a statewide, grass-roots response to gun violence, CeaseFirePA's executive director Joe Grace said...

HARRISBURG -- Joe Grace, a lawyer and a former journalist, knows what it's like to be on the hot seat. He's been communications director for Philadelphia Mayor John Street for the past 2 1/2 years. But with Philadelphia getting a new mayor, Michael Nutter, in January, Mr. Grace is changing jobs, and effective Jan. 14 he'll have another challenge as the new executive director of CeaseFire PA, a nonprofit group that says it is "dedicated to preventing gun violence.'' CeaseFire PA has joined with Gov. Ed Rendell, another former Philadelphia mayor, in pushing for three new gun control laws from...