I guess I'm kind of stuck lately on Pennsylvania's proposed requirement to promptly report lost or stolen handguns, but since I have been talking about it, I might as well follow it to the bitter (for the other side) end. What happened? It died like a dog.
A proposal to require handgun owners to report to police when their weapons are lost or stolen was defeated Tuesday in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives.Supporters of the legislation, oddly enough, seem to think they did pretty well.
The 75-128 vote was a defeat for gun-control advocates who said it would have helped prevent criminals from using straw buyers to circumvent Pennsylvania's gun sales regulations.
"Seventy-five is great, on one hand," Rep. Dwight Evans, D-Philadelphia, said afterward. "The reality is, we want to have a law on the books."Seventy-five is "great"? Admittedly, I'm not especially familiar with Pennsylvania legislative procedure--maybe there's some kind of special consideration given to failed legislative measures that manage a 3/8ths "super-minority." Or maybe Representative Evans is pleased that the measure nearly managed a whopping 54% (55-47) of the Democratic vote. Unfortunately for Dwight, it did rather less well among Republicans (20-81, or not quite 20%--I guess those twenty are the ones discussed here).
Representative Bryan Culter, unlike supporters of this proposed law, seems to have some knowledge of the Bill of Rights, as evidenced by his noting that such a law would violate the Fifth Amendment's protection against self-incrimination.
Rep. Bryan Cutler, R-Lancaster, said the legislation raised similar issues to a 1968 U.S. Supreme Court case that applied protections against self-incrimination to a gun registration law.I cannot help but be very pleased to see a legislator opposing this abomination on those grounds--I thought David Codrea was about the only one making that point (most recently here).
"At best, this law as drafted will be ineffective," he said. "At worst, I believe that it will be unconstitutional."
Anyway, it appears that a legal requirement to report lost or stolen guns in Pennsylvania is dead for this year (although it will certainly be back). I wonder if Bryan Miller will find a way to spin this.
Stumble it!
1 comments:
Bryan Miller is having such a good time anointing himself in his brother's blood that he may miss this entirely. I suspect Mr. Miller is pleased at his brother's murder.
I know that sounds mean-spirited, but let's face it, he could not possibly believe what he says. ERgo he relies on his brother's corpse to give him legitimacy and cover when he tries to mandate the same end for others.
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