At a weaponry center, cause for celebration

[WhiteFeather]

Anyone else take offensive to the headline of this article besides me?

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/world_us/21930854.html

At a weaponry center, cause for celebration
Shoppers at Cabela's, a firearms megastore, hailed the decision as a victory for gun owners.

HAMBURG, Pa. - If hunting is a religion in Pennsylvania - and many will testify that it is - then Cabela's is the temple.
Under the green roof of a single store as big as many suburban shopping malls, gun enthusiasts can inspect 500 rifles, shotguns and pistols behind glass counters that seem to go on forever.

Yesterday, Cabela's customers were singing hymns of gratitude to a U.S. Supreme Court that for the first time had certified the general constitutional right of sane, law-abiding citizens to own guns.

"That's great," said Jim Morgan, of Bath, Pa., who had just paid $300 for a Ruger pistol and $35 for a box of shells.

Morgan, a retired English teacher and school administrator who owns numerous guns, said the pistol was for his protection at his home in the Lehigh Valley.

"I no longer feel that the state, federal and local government can protect the right of an individual to pursue life without being attacked," he said. "Every day, you pick up the paper and read about somebody breaking into a house . . . or somebody being accosted on the street."

Gun rights have long been near the top of the political agenda in Pennsylvania, which has more licensed hunters - almost 1 million - than any state except Texas. Repeated attempts in the past decade to enact laws restricting the purchase of handguns to one a month have been blocked in the legislature. When Philadelphia adopted restrictive gun laws, state lawmakers quickly moved to strike them down.

In 2006, according to state statistics, 413,165 firearms were either purchased or privately transferred in Pennsylvania. Licensed dealers reported 164,212 handgun transactions and 248,953 long-gun transactions for the year.

So there was much satisfaction yesterday - though not a lot of surprise - in the court's ruling.

Hunters and gun-rights advocates said they knew that Second Amendment rights were on the court's agenda but had felt that the conservative leanings of many of the nine justices would protect their ability to own guns.

"We are ecstatic," said Melody Zullinger, executive director of the Pennsylvania Federation of Sportsmen's Clubs. "We were optimistic this was the way the ruling would go."

The specific law banning handguns in people's homes that the court struck down applied only to the District of Columbia.

"The most important thing is, you shouldn't be punished just by where you live," Zullinger said.

Bill Miller, regional director of the Unified Sportsmen of Pennsylvania, said the ruling would delight the hunter, target shooter and outdoors person.

Miller said that there were already enough gun laws on the books but that many went unenforced.

"Every day, we have criminals who are locked up for using firearms in the commission of a crime, but unfortunately they don't get tried for the firearms offenses," said Miller, contending that the gun charges are often dropped during plea negotiations in cases of attempted murder or armed robbery.

"Take areas like Philadelphia. We don't need more gun laws. We need more jails," said Miller. "We don't have a place to put people."

At Cabela's, which sits at the foot of the Blue Mountain ridge along Interstate 78, the gun counters were about as busy yesterday as on any Thursday in June.

Several gun-buying patrons - all very much in favor of gun rights - said they had no problems with sensible gun regulations. They agreed with Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote the court decision, that felons and the insane should not have access to firearms.

But the one-gun-a-month proposals went too far, said Rich Reedinger, of Petersburg, Pa., who retired two years ago as a parole agent in Montgomery County.

"It's ridiculous," he said. "It's not a gun problem. In Philadelphia or D.C., it's a drug problem. I think if they just enforce the guns laws in the books, they'd have a lot less troubles than they do now."

Reedinger, with his grandson, 12, had just left Cabela's via the cathedral-like front doors carrying a new Ruger rifle and 400 rounds of ammunition for what he called "varmint hunting" - mainly getting rid of groundhogs.

He said restrictive gun laws "punish" only lawful citizens who attempt to buy firearms legally.

"Who's being penalized? Me. The criminals are still going to be able to have guns."

Elsewhere in the state yesterday, the reaction of gun enthusiasts was much the same.

At the Firing Line, a pistol range and gun shop in South Philadelphia, owner Gregory J. Isabella said after the court ruling: "Phones have been ringing off the hook this morning. Today we had a customer from Upper Darby. Something happened where his girlfriend got spooked by a break-in or something, so they bought a shotgun."

He said he felt Pennsylvania gun laws were reasonable. A gun buyer must show a driver's license to a shop owner, who then can do an instant check to see if the potential buyer has a criminal record.

"You can get a gun the same day," he said.

[chrisjames_71]

Nope can't say I do

[Ten*K]

cabellas is hardly a "weaponry center". they have more fishing poles than guns. they display more varieties of indoor furniture than guns. If you can buy a pickup truck, a log cabin, funnel cake, a 4 wheeler, fly-fishing supplies, camp gear, and a god-damned chandelier made of antlers, it's not a "weapons center".

it's like calling Sears a jewelry store.

[PennsyPlinker]

When I was a kid growing up in the Poconos, a sporting goods shop was a place where one went to buy guns, fishing poles, camping gear, etc. The biggest one I knew of was Dunkelberger's in Stroudsburg. Of course, this was long enough ago that you could still buy rifles through the Sears catalog. I remember being a boy and walking through the Sears store with my first centerfire rifle, a Banana republic Mauser.

Then I met my wife to be, and her brothers. They thought a sporting goods store sold basketballs and baseballs and stuff like that. There was a complete difference of perception and understanding between us. So I can see the mindset that calls Cabela's a weaponry center. It is just some citified anti trying to put a spin on things even before the article is read.

[WVneighbor]

I think y'all are missing the point.

Guns are not weapons, they are tools, or at worst, firearms.

[Ten*K]

not missing the point. all the things I listed are tools, too. even the antler chandelier.

[GunLawyer001]

Is it just me, or was the article trying to convey the idea that gun stores are being flooded by Pennsylvanians buying guns as a result of the DC gun ban being invalidated?

I can understand people buying guns because of a hurricane, or because Obama gets elected or because they live in DC and now they can buy one; but nobody in PA is now able to buy a gun because of Heller, if they were unable to buy a gun 2 weeks ago.

It seems like the reporter had a theme ahead of time, and the facts weren't going to interfere.

[LittleRedToyota]

all i know is that if i ever open a gun shop, i'm going to call it "The Weaponry Center"

[GunLawyer001]

all i know is that if i ever open a gun shop, i'm going to call it "The Weaponry Center"

I've always been partial to "Gun Traffickers". Then you could sue the newspapers and TV every time they alleged "gun traffickers are responsible for 10,000 deaths annually..."

[LittleRedToyota]

I've always been partial to "Gun Traffickers". Then you could sue the newspapers and TV every time they alleged "gun traffickers are responsible for 10,000 deaths annually..."

LOL. we should open a store together...we'll call the store "The Weaponry Center" and the people who work there our "Gun Traffickers".

then we can do public service ads aimed at teaching kids about gun safety.

at the end it would say..."The preceding public service announcement was brought to you by the Gun Traffickers at The Weaponry Center".

i think i would actually pay quite a bit of money to see that commercial on TV.