Politicians come and go, and political parties go in and out of power in Harrisburg. One thing stays constant – the Pennsylvania Legislature is firmly controlled by the gun lobby. The other day the House Judiciary refused to even let two very limited attempts at gun control come up for a vote in the full House.
What radical assaults would these two bills have taken on our precious right to bear arms? One would have limited a person to purchasing one gun a month. The other would have allowed cities like Philadelphia, Harrisburg and Lancaster to have somewhat tougher restrictions on gun ownership in those places than the state as a whole. Who needs to buy more than twelve guns a year? Drug dealers and hit men, that’s about all. How many hunters that you know are planning to bag a buck near the Liberty Bell or on Market Square?
I come from a family of hunters and I own a rifle and shotgun myself. I am committed to allowing law abiding citizens the right to use firearms for legitimate purposes. No reasonable person wants to separate the deer hunter from his 30-06. But we have an epidemic of gun violence in our cities, mostly by handguns and automatic weapons. Ours is the only western democracy that has no meaningful restrictions on gun ownership. As a direct consequence, we have many more homicides by firearm than similar countries, particularly more policemen killed by guns. Sure, we need to enforce the laws we already have. But our policemen and sheriffs are telling us that we also have to stem the flood of guns going into the hands of bad actors.
Why doesn’t it make sense that a prospective gun owner should have to go through a process to that for a prospective car owner? Too many hunters have bought into the NRA tripe that if we allow any restrictions on gun ownership, next week they’ll be coming for your shotgun. It’s the same garbage that the tobacco lobby got away with for decades. How many more dead cops will it take before our Legislature grows enough backbone to take some action?
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