3 new PA gun laws, MAYBE

[87GTSts]

I don't have any heartache with the not being allowed to have gun while the charges are pending. As long as the government doesn't confiscate them and you can transfer them to a friend for safe keeping.

The one that bothers me is the mandatory year for carrying without a permit.

Please forgive me if I sound rude, but what other rights would you be willing to give up just because you are accused of commiting a crime?

Would you give up your right to free speech... How about your protection against unreasonable searches and seizures... Maybe your right to due process... I can go on and on but hopefully this is enough to get my point across.

You should never give away your rights because of the false perception that it is for the "greater good", or that crime will never stop if you don't give up those rights.

[mak47]

1. The first of these proposed laws makes it illegal to sell or transfer a gun upon being charged with a crime.

That is a very big deal. That means that if I am charged with a crime, accused of something--not convicted, or even indicted--I (or any of us) would have no choice but to surrender thousands of dollars worth of my own property to the very people who are accusing me?

Right now, if someone is charged with a crime, they are not forced to give up their firearms, and with good reason. First of all, if they are innocent, they have no obligation to do so, secondly, having committed a crime or not--those guns are their property and they have a right to dispose of it as they see fit.

That usually entails entrusting a family member with the safe keeping of the property until the time the person is acquitted or charges are dropped. If the person is guilty, they know they are guilty, and will typically sell off their gun collections before trial, or before agreeing to plead guilty.

Like it or not, sometimes people who own guns legally are charged with crimes. Sometimes serious ones, but that doesn't change the fact that their firearms are their property.

Would any of us think for even a second that it would be acceptable for police to confiscate other property owned by someone charged with a crime? Certainly not. In many cases the accused may have a family, perhaps a spouse and children. In those cases, technically, any property owned is community property between the accused and his or her spouse. Therefore by confiscating any property owned by the accused individual, you are also confiscating property owned by his or her spouse who in all likelihood did absolutely nothing wrong.

2. The second would make it illegal for someone who was convicted of a drug charge as a minor to ever own a firearm.

Are you serious? Not that bad?

Here's the real deal with that law, and it's disgusting. It is a widely held belief that children who are exposed to crime, and become involved in it as juveniles (particularly urban youths) will never escape from a life of crime, and will only become adult criminals who will be legally allowed to purchase firearms until their inevetable next conviction.

The theory is that during that time, those people can go out and make "straw" purchases for their gang-banging buddies.

The reality is that the very system of control that has doomed these juveniles to live a life of crime and/or drug addiction, is now trying to exert further control over the already sick welfare state in which the people targeted by this law live.

Instead of working to better the lives of these kids, instead of actually attempting to instill any kind of values in them (many of whom are very, very young and are totally open to positive influence), the state would prefer to simply throw them away like so much trash--along with their constitutionally protected rights--and ours!

Not that bad? Really?

3. Mandatory sentence of 1 year in prison for carrying a firearm without a license.

Scenario:

A husband and wife have 2 children. The husband is violent and abusive towards the wife and she finally has an opportunity to escape with her children. She does so, and immediately purchases a pistol, legally, to defend herself and her kids against the very real threat of violence from this man.

She applies for her permit and is waiting for it to be processed.

Next, she hears through the grapevine that her estranged husband is making threats against her and her kids. She does not yet have the permit to carry, but believes her life and/or the life of her kids is in danger. That day she decides to put her gun in her purse when she goes to pick up the kids, just in case.

On her way to pick them up, and in a panic due to all the stress of the recent threats, she runs a stop sign. Her purse is sitting open on the passenger seat with the gun exposed, and she is pulled over for running the sign.

The cop, happens to not be very understanding of her situation and is not willing to simply look the other way when he sees the gun. (I believe most would if they understand the circumstances)

Now, because she did not have a license, she is charged with carrying a concealed weapon without a license and is sentenced to 1 year in prison, because that is what the "not so bad" mandatory minimum sentence calls for!

Because of that, she loses her job, her kids, and essentially her entire life. The children are taken custody of by their violent and abusive father, who at this point has been charged with no official crime and is therefore the default custodial parent.

Personally, I think going to prison for a year is pretty F'n bad, especially if it's for doing something that the Constitution of the United States of America says we all have a right to do (keep and bear arms).

If a proposed law can be described as "not that bad", that means it's downright horrible and has no business being passed. Any law that restricts the rights guaranteed to us by the Constitution, and given to us by God himself, is bad, period end of story.

[Asmodeus6]

The third one negates Open Carry as well. It did not specify, and if left to interpretation...

This will become the new thing people who OC will get charged with that do not have a LTCF. And then if the first one gets passed too... they'll TAKE all your guns and toss your ass in jail for 365 mandatory minimum. In one fell swoop they will have created such a deterrent for OC that no one will do it. Probably even those with a LTCF depending again on how #3 is interpreted.

These are all bad for business. Even #2. People change a lot from childhood to adulthood. Not one of us that does not suffer from a mental problem is the same as we were when we were 15. Or hell even 18. I'm not the same person I was 12 months ago. PA already has some of the most stringent juvenielle laws in the entire USA. One of the highest %'s of children charged as adults. (In the US) I'm completely OK with allowing them to screw up as an adult before we strip away constitutional rights.

And if you aren't too, you are a fool. If our youth are the future, then what are we to disqualify them before they even have a chance to decide who they are? This is nothing more than the idiot lottery. They are hoping that more and more win before they become adults DQ'ing as many people as possible to thin the ranks of those that will own, and subsequently support guns and 2A. This makes their job easier and ours harder in the long haul.

And it's all it is.

[Geronimo509]

First of all, every one is interpreting this differently than I was last night. After reading your posts I know have to agree with you.

At least the article said semi auto rifle, right?

[Burton]

To the point, I don't agree with any of these.

Additionally, I love how all of these articles/reports start with "We want to close the loopholes in illegally purchasing weapons, etc." Then, instead of addressing the current laws on the books, they go off and create new and even more asinine laws.

[Bmarshall91]

So when did you need a license to carry a gun in PA? If I carry openly and don't get into a vehicle.... Why then do I need a license?

[PocketProtector]

I couldn't be more strongly opposed to anything than I am to mandating minimum sentences for the victimless crime of carrying a firearm without a license. That's absolutely insane. You can mug an old lady and not go to jail, why should the prisons be filled with scared soccer moms and convenience store clerks who were found with guns under the seats of their own cars? Non-prohibited people who are found to be in unlawful possession of guns in vehicles or on their persons, in the absence of any other criminal intent, should be at worst punished with a summary offense, not the current M1 or felony.

You have a Constitutional right to keep and bear arms. The courts have mostly ignored that right, as they pretend to discover far less explicit "rights" like gay marriage and abortion and a paid attorney. The mindset that bearing arms is evil and that we only do so at the forbearance of our rulers is simply wrong, and indicative of a mental illness. Good people are entitled to protect themselves. The job of the government is to make that easier, not harder. The government is paid to catch and punish the bad people so that we don't have to use lethal force to protect ourselves; does anyone seriously argue that our streets are safe 24/7, and we no longer need to handle our own defense?

I have no problem with harsh sentences for people who misuse guns. It's the job of the DA and the judges and jurors to send proven predators away, NOT to punish good people who try to fight back but miss one paragraph out of the thick Crimes Code book. Find me one person who thinks that having a gun purely for self-defense is something so evil that it deserves the destruction of someone's family, job, and psyche via a year incarcerated among thugs and pimps and drug addicts and arsonists.

These bills always come out of Philadelphia, because none of the crooks in Philly government are willing to tell the voters that the problem is the voters and their sons and cousins and baby-daddies. As I mentioned once before, I witnessed DA Lynn Abraham tell a group of lawyers that the adjacent suburbs don't have the rampant crime of the city, that they all drank the same water, spoke the same language, and "IT ISN'T THE PEOPLE", so she was mystified why Philadelphia residents committed crimes at 2 to 5 times the rate of people living 10 miles away.

Get a clue, Lynn. It IS the people. Focus on the criminals, provide a real deterrent to crime, and an incentive to cooperate with the police. Give some real hope to the working families of the city, hold the lawless barbarians accountable. Disarmed thugs still commit crimes, but disarmed good people die.

Great post, send it to all the papers !!

[Paradigm]

All three laws are full of EPIC FAIL.

[-JD-]

I couldn't be more strongly opposed to anything than I am to mandating minimum sentences for the victimless crime of carrying a firearm without a license. That's absolutely insane. You can mug an old lady and not go to jail, why should the prisons be filled with scared soccer moms and convenience store clerks who were found with guns under the seats of their own cars? Non-prohibited people who are found to be in unlawful possession of guns in vehicles or on their persons, in the absence of any other criminal intent, should be at worst punished with a summary offense, not the current M1 or felony.

You have a Constitutional right to keep and bear arms. The courts have mostly ignored that right, as they pretend to discover far less explicit "rights" like gay marriage and abortion and a paid attorney. The mindset that bearing arms is evil and that we only do so at the forbearance of our rulers is simply wrong, and indicative of a mental illness. Good people are entitled to protect themselves. The job of the government is to make that easier, not harder. The government is paid to catch and punish the bad people so that we don't have to use lethal force to protect ourselves; does anyone seriously argue that our streets are safe 24/7, and we no longer need to handle our own defense?

I have no problem with harsh sentences for people who misuse guns. It's the job of the DA and the judges and jurors to send proven predators away, NOT to punish good people who try to fight back but miss one paragraph out of the thick Crimes Code book. Find me one person who thinks that having a gun purely for self-defense is something so evil that it deserves the destruction of someone's family, job, and psyche via a year incarcerated among thugs and pimps and drug addicts and arsonists.

These bills always come out of Philadelphia, because none of the crooks in Philly government are willing to tell the voters that the problem is the voters and their sons and cousins and baby-daddies. As I mentioned once before, I witnessed DA Lynn Abraham tell a group of lawyers that the adjacent suburbs don't have the rampant crime of the city, that they all drank the same water, spoke the same language, and "IT ISN'T THE PEOPLE", so she was mystified why Philadelphia residents committed crimes at 2 to 5 times the rate of people living 10 miles away.

Get a clue, Lynn. It IS the people. Focus on the criminals, provide a real deterrent to crime, and an incentive to cooperate with the police. Give some real hope to the working families of the city, hold the lawless barbarians accountable. Disarmed thugs still commit crimes, but disarmed good people die.

Excellent as always. (ETA rep button broken - owe you.)

I would offer one subtle, but I think important refinement/expansion.

... I have no problem with harsh sentences for people who misuse guns. ...

I'd be more apt to say:

I have no problem with harsh sentences for people who commit violent crimes or knowingly endanger others.

How you do it is irrelevant, (i.e. gun, knife, rope, pen, brick, rock, screwdriver, car, bridge [as in throwing off] etc. - I think you get the idea) - Dead is dead, injured is injured. The knowledge/intent and the result are the key issues.

The crime-with-a-gun, tack-on-charge, laws are bogus. Every time society adds another, often poorly though out and written, law to target the current object of public outrage or concern it typically results in unintended consequences. Aggregated, we end up where we live in a legal minefield as GL001 pointed out.

Despite the pretty near universal (pro/anti-gun) belief that people who commit crimes with a gun should be punished, when we, as pro-gun citizens, support the singling-out of the gun by superfluously referencing that (the gun) aspect as opposed to keeping the focus on the fundamental crime, we are tacitly supporting the agenda of the anti's.

Everytime I see "us" (nominally pro-gun folks) agreeing that we need to be tough on "gun crime", I cringe a little. Not because I fundamentally disagree, but because I feel we are tacitly accepting the premise that guns have some inherent special aspect and are fundamentally different than other tools/objects. Then the battle is half lost.

BTW. In my world view the 2nd is not just about guns. It encompasses knives, slingshots, pitchforks, etc.

[offshorebear]

PCN is replaying something from yesterday. It's Rendel calling for another assault weapon ban and repealing the Tiahrt amendments. So far he has made up a statistic about how the AWB worked amazing well to reduce crime and he said the 2nd amendment doesn't apply to "assault weapons" because they are "extremely deadly"

Does anyone know anything about this?