Kim Stolfer, president of Firearms Owners Against Crime, was at the state Capitol on Sept. 24, 2018, to lobby against two gun bills.
Ed Mahon / PA Post
Will the ‘Second Amendment Sanctuary’ movement backfire?
At least one Pa. gun rights activist thinks so
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Emily Previti/PA Post
Ed Mahon / PA Post
Kim Stolfer, president of Firearms Owners Against Crime, was at the state Capitol on Sept. 24, 2018, to lobby against two gun bills.
International Holocaust Remembrance Day is today. I recently caught this re-broadcast of Latino USA’s story about Anthony Acevedo, the first Mexican-American Holocaust survivor to be registered with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. Acevedo registered in 2010, two years after his interviews with CNN led to an investigative report and the federal government’s recognition of soldiers’ experiences as POWs at Berga, a German concentration camp, during World War II. The story includes audio of Acevedo explaining that he and other soldiers had to sign what amounted to non-disclosure agreements as they were rescued. Listin in full here. –Emily Previti, PA Post Reporter
Ed Mahon / PA Post
Kim Stolfer, president of Firearms Owners Against Crime, was at the state Capitol on Sept. 24, 2018, to lobby against two gun bills. (Ed Mahon / PA Post)
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Firearms advocates across the Commonwealth are pushing “Second Amendment Sanctuary” ordinances they believe would stop local governments from enforcing a broad range of gun restrictions. But the leader of one prominent gun rights organization on Friday told Ed Mahon the sanctuary campaign is “misguided” and worries it will backfire. Read Ed’s full story here. He’ll also be covering a special council on gun violence at the capitol later this week.
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In Manheim Township, officials will vote tonight on an ordinance to ban gun shops from operating within 1,000 feet of a school, as well as prohibit signage that includes images of guns inside school zones — exactly the kind of local law that 2nd Amendment sanctuary activists warn about. Lancaster Country Day School petitioned the township after a firearms dealer, now closed, opened just a few hundred feet away from its campus. One sticking point is the First Amendment implications of signage limits in the proposal, LNP’s Junior González reports.
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Another gun-related issue with First and Second Amendment implications is Pennsylvania’s decision to join 19 other states and Washington, D.C. in a lawsuit over federal regulations they claim make it easier to access blueprints for guns that can be manufactured with 3-D printers — so called ghost guns because they are effectively untraceable. More here about the lawsuit from the Associated Press. And check out this story from Ed on more efforts targeting ghost guns in Pa.
Best of the rest
Kirby Lee via AP Photo
Kobe Bryant, the Los Angeles Lakers superstar with daughter Gianna Maria-Onore Bryant during an NCAA women’s basketball game. Both of them died Sunday morning, in a helicopter crash. (Kirby Lee via AP Photo)
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Kobe Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter Gianna were among nine people killed in a helicopter crash Sunday morning in Southern California. Bryant, the son of Philadelphia 76er Joe “Jelly Bean” Bryant, grew up in Lower Merion and was drafted into the NBA out of Lower Merion High School. The 41-year-old retired in 2016 after a storied career and nabbed an Oscar two years later for his short documentary “Dear Basketball,” TMZ Sports notes. Philly and its suburbs are mourning the loss, The Philadelphia Inquirer reports.
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Plenty of Pa. politicians took to Twitter to mourn Bryant’s tragic death: Gov. Tom Wolf, Philly Mayor Jim Kenney, U.S. Sens. Bob Casey and Pat Toomey, Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick, Mary Gay Scanlon, Chrissy Houlahan, Madeleine Dean, Lloyd Smucker, Dwight Evans and Mike Doyle. (President Trump and former president Obama too.)
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Former Harrisburg Mayor Steve Reed died Saturday after a battle with prostate cancer. Reed, 70, served in the statehouse and as a county commissioner before serving seven terms as mayor of Pennsylvania’s capital city. PennLive’s John Luciew has this feature on the “mayor for life” and his complicated legacy.
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Plaintiffs in the Commonwealth Court case over the ExpressVote XL voting machine withdrew their motion for a preliminary injunction seeking to shelve the device for the presidential primary while the lawsuit plays out. I wrote this story about why and what’s next. Meanwhile, officials moved to hire a new election direct/voting registrar in Northampton County (one of three XL jurisdictions in Pennsylvania; others are Philadelphia and Cumberland), WFMZ reports. And Montour County, one of the few counties where voters had been filling out ballots by hand for years before the statewide shift to paper ballots, tested its new machines last week, according to The Daily Item.
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Meanwhile, in D.C. … Pennsylvania Republican Senator Pat Toomey has a big job in addition to representing the commonweath: He’s the keeper of the Senate candy drawer, NPR reports. The Morning Call did a piece on this last week.
