Harrisburg 23JAN2013 - Part 2 - ACTION!!

[MonsterGlock]

Philadelphia Inquirer also published a decent story.

By Amy Worden
INQUIRER HARRISBURG BUREAU

HARRISBURG - The passionate debate over gun laws erupted inside and outside the state Capitol on Wednesday.

On the steps, about 150 gun-rights proponents - most of them armed - rallied against calls from President Obama and others to tighten gun laws in the aftermath of the Newtown, Conn., shootings.

Inside the building, about 300 gun-control supporters, some of them clutching pictures of relatives killed by gun violence, called for stricter firearms laws at an event organized by the group CeaseFirePA.

While the rallies were at opposite ends of the complex, the two sides squared off briefly in the crowded east-wing Rotunda during the CeaseFirePA event.

In a moment that was more spontaneous confrontation than a snippet of any national conversation on gun violence, Sally Thompson of Glen Mills, Delaware County, took her concerns directly to the gun-rights forces. She didn't have to go far. Some were standing right behind her, holding pro-Second Amendment signs.

"I want you to have a gun," Thompson told a trio of young men, one wearing a shirt emblazoned with a Smith & Wesson logo. "I just want to limit assault weapons."

Paul Saber of New Columbia asked her, "Why can't I have an elite fighting weapon today?"

She replied, "Because too many people are dying."

Saber said he stopped by the CeaseFire rally after the gun-rights rally to hear what the opposition had to say. But he said he does not see room for compromise.

"You take away my right to have a gun and you make me a victim," he said.

Saber's handgun was, at that moment, in the hands of Capitol Police - along with 129 other firearms the gun-rights supporters checked as they entered the building, where all visitors step through metal detectors. No incidents were reported by Capitol Police, said Department of General Services spokesman Troy Thompson.

Earlier, Saber joined the crowd on the front steps to rally against measures under consideration in the Assembly, such as an assault-weapons ban, a limit on purchases to one handgun a month, and a requirement that owners report lost or stolen guns to police. Those measures are sure to face stormy debate in a state where big-city officials have pushed strict gun curbs but firearms owners are a strong and politically active bloc.

State Rep. Daryl Metcalfe (R., Butler), the state's most vocal pro-gun legislator, drew a roar of approval at the rally when he said he had introduced House Bill 357 - named for the .357 Magnum handgun - to bar the state attorney general and other state officials from enforcing any new federal gun laws.

"We're showing the liberal gun-grabbers that they are wrong," Metcalfe said.

The state's new attorney general, Kathleen Kane, a Democrat who supports gun-control measures, said through a spokesman that she had no comment on the bill.

Carl Tobias, a constitutional law expert at the University of Richmond Law School, said such a bill would violate the U.S. Constitution's Supremacy Clause, which gives federal law precedence over conflicting state laws.

At the CeaseFire rally, Philadelphia Deputy Mayor Richard Negrin told the crowd how, in 1979, he saw his father gunned down on a Union City, N.J., street by a person wielding a military-style gun prohibited under the 1994 federal assault weapons ban.

"It's a weapon of mass destruction," Negrin said. "Now you can buy them on the Internet."
Thompson, the gun-control supporter who argued with gun-rights supporters, said she was hoping they would realize "that I am not trying to take their guns away."

Before turning back to listen to another speaker tell of a loved one killed by gunfire, Thompson said, "I'd just like to limit the speed that bullets fly."


I emailed Amy Worden and thanked her for showing our side of the story and offered to contact her for future events. I would rather see somebody willing to bring our points across then have a random reporter show up and write a biased story.

I was SOOO Close to interrupting an saying.... "EXCUSE ME!!! So you're telling me and everyone else in here supporting us and you that your FATHER was gunned down by a CRMININAL using a firearm that was BANNED during the middle of a DECADE LONG AWB ban and he was STILL KILLED with an Assult Rifle! What was the MURDERERS sentance and IS HE STILL in JAIL? Can you PLEASE TELL US ALL why the murderer HAD A Assult Weapon during an AWB!???????" Should I have ? But you know I didn't want to be rude

[StonewallRabbitry]

PS Capital police a OK.

The firearm cheeck in went better than I expected, when ceasefire was nearing the end I heard one of the police get on the radio and say "they are finishing up here, we better get more people up here to give these people their guns back". When checking out one officer made a comment about not liking pink guns and he wouldn't let his wife get a pick gun, my girlfriends gun is pink. I do wish they would have checked ID when giving the guns back, if I would have dropped my receipt anyone could have walked out with my gun.

We did have one Ceasefire person bump into my girlfriend and call her a "dumbass" and it seemed like the Ceasfire people came up to the gun supporters to have conversations and not of the gun supporters tried to go up and confront the ceasfire people

[Vicxfirthx1012]

The firearm cheeck in went better than I expected, when ceasefire was nearing the end I heard one of the police get on the radio and say "they are finishing up here, we better get more people up here to give these people their guns back". When checking out one officer made a comment about not liking pink guns and he wouldn't let his wife get a pick gun, my girlfriends gun is pink. I do wish they would have checked ID when giving the guns back, if I would have dropped my receipt anyone could have walked out with my gun.

We did have one Ceasefire person bump into my girlfriend and call her a "dumbass" and it seemed like the Ceasfire people came up to the gun supporters to have conversations and not of the gun supporters tried to go up and confront the ceasfire people

I only encountered one that was willing to have a conversation. The rest were only interested in trying to tell us we are wrong.

[Pilot321]

I was there and was very dissapointed with the turn out. I know it was mid-week, and cold, but these are very desperate times, and our voices need to be heard. Did the rally on the 19th have better turn out?

The 357 bill needs our support. Please write, and call your legislators to support this bill.

[Siobhra]

Sounds like the 19th had a better turn out.

[IIIIIREPOIIIII]

we need to do a rally WITH OUR AR'S IN FRONT OF CEASEFIRE'S BASE IN PHILLY


Posted from Pafoa.org App for Android

[LBaker]

Sounds like the 19th had a better turn out.

Maybe, but we had better results. Most of the lawmakers I spoke with didn't even know there was an event on the 19th. They knew we were there yesterday and so did ceasefire. I was at the 19th rally also, btw.

[7998]

Thank you to everyone who made the journey and froze your butts off. I wish I could have went. I already put in for April 23rd off.

Petition is here... http://www.repmetcalfe.com/guncontrol2013.aspx

Signed, Wife signed,Mom signed, Son signed.

[Finch00]

Maybe, but we had better results. Most of the lawmakers I spoke with didn't even know there was an event on the 19th. They knew we were there yesterday and so did ceasefire. I was at the 19th rally also, btw.

yeah ceasefire has been in damage control tryint to spin it that there were more of them.... i saw both crowds ours seemed much larger. They must have been counting reporters.

[NuclearSociety]

Thank you for everyone who came,
I took pictures also, some not so great quality but I will share all I have soon.

Was a long drive back home so after work ill post them up somewhere.

Ill also see if I can chop together some video.