Posted on 12/11/2007 9:02:57 AM PST by Erik Latranyi
HARRISBURG — Gov. Ed Rendell, standing alongside mayors and police officers from across Pennsylvania, urged action Monday on gun-control legislation that is stalled in the General Assembly.
Rendell said polls indicate majorities of Pennsylvanians favor several proposals, including limiting handgun purchases to one per month and requiring owners to report whenever guns are lost or stolen.
“No more ceremonies, no more resolutions,” Rendell said during a rally at the state Capitol. “It’s time to put your rear end on the line and be counted.”
The governor defended the measures as being aimed at protecting police officers and said they are not detrimental to hunters or the state’s hunting and firearms tradition.
National Rifle Association lobbyist John Hohenwarter called it “a made-for-TV rally” that obscured larger problems with Philadelphia’s impoverished schools, outstanding criminal warrants and police staffing.
“You can put together any kind of push poll to get whatever result you want,” he said. “Evidently the polling is off when you have the majority of members of the General Assembly opposing those types of legislation.”
The rally was organized by CeaseFire PA, a group backing stricter gun-control laws. Phil Goldsmith, the group’s president, said its supporters will not go away “until the General Assembly enacts changes in our handgun laws to make our communities safer.”
Attending the rally were a few dozen uniformed police officers, state lawmakers drawn mostly from the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh areas and the mayors of Philadelphia, Allentown, Bethlehem, Carlisle, Pottsville and Wilkes-Barre.
“This is not the ’40s and the ’50s or even the ’60s,” said Philadelphia Mayor John Street. “We are in a whole new century, and doesn’t it make sense that we should modernize our gun laws?”
Gun legislation is about as politically sensitive as topics get in the General Assembly, where leaders of both parties are sympathetic to the NRA and many rank-and-file Democrats hail from regions where Second Amendment rights are closely guarded.
Last week, black lawmakers walked off the House floor to protest the lack of progress on gun-control legislation, delaying debate on an open-records bill. A majority of Legislative Black Caucus members are from Philadelphia, where murders — mostly shootings — have been occurring at a rate of more than one a day for the past three years.
Last month, Rendell took the unusual step of appearing before the House Judiciary Committee in a failed effort to spur the Legislature toward adopting some of the gun regulations he supports.
There, fixed it. Pennsylvanians in general love their guns and their hunting. I don't believe the original version.
Fast Eddie just might be the Dem’s VP candidate in ‘08. He’s succeeded in fooling the voters of Pa. twice so it won’t be too hard to fool the rest of the country.
As you certainly know Erik, this is unconstitutional by the state constitution. I think there will be challenges to it if it’s passed.
Now Fast Eddie wants to spread the successful policy statewide. /s
Good thing Edward the Fast isn’t the Governor of Colorado; there would have been a whole lot more dead people last Sunday!
Sure thing. How about some of the polling criteria that is not mentioned. You know, info such as "Adults in Beauty Salons between noon and three pm."
If they cannot enforce current laws, how are new laws going to help?????
Absolutely no logic whatsoever in this.
I think that's why he's on his unpopular anti-gun crusade at this point, hoping that if he can force gun control in a state like PA, the looney left will approve of him and he'll have a job when his failed term as governor is over.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Won’t be the first time Fast Eddie discarded the state constitution. Remember the illegal pay raises about a year ago?
Exactly right. One great thing about Pennsylvania.
Yes it does. We should do away with them. All of them. No background checks, no outlawing of private gun sales, no outlawing of carrying guns in your vehicle.
Yes, modern people reject the ‘fashion and passion’ of unfruitful and populist fads of the past and return to simple, timeless principals. One of those being to have the character to enforce the simple and basic laws first: those addressing intimidation, assault, theft, arson, and murder, even when the attempt is not successful.
Character is the expression of basic, deeply seated, values. What values are expressed when a person seems to want to find ways to excuse crime and excuse the circumstances of the criminal, or to let convicted criminals off with a slap on the wrist, as well as to make it difficult for a person to defend themselves.
Policies are expressed by legislative and executive bodies as an expression of their collective values. It is not a matter of “courage”, for a courageous person already knows what is right. The call the have the courage to enforce existing law is a call to a person and government institutions we presume already know what is the right thing to do.
My call is for these people and the institutions they operate to know right from wrong, which they all too often do not.
Modern people are willing to be honest about their basic values. People of the middle to later 20th Century for a few decades found it too easy to climb in a big blue bubble of their own making, a bubble sometimes called Camelot where everything was done to advance “social justice”, which meant that intent to have equal outcomes trumped fair and even-handed rules and justice.
Push polls.
For every disarmed victim, these political hacks should be charged with accessory to murder and deprivation of civil rights under color of law.
There. Fixed your fix. Those of us in Pennsylvania know its the liberal bookends of the state (Pittsburgh and Philadelphia) that are ruining it for the rest of the state.
Good point.
OK Mr Mayor I have a suggestion A mandatory carry law for all non - felon city residents
"The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State shall not be questioned."
Which part of that doesn't Eddie and his cronies understand?
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