Rendell urges ban on assault weapons

[4sarge]

Rendell urges ban on assault weapons
Thursday, April 16, 2009
By Tom Barnes, Post-Gazette Harrisburg Bureau

HARRISBURG -- Surrounded by Pittsburgh officials such as Mayor Luke Ravenstahl and Police Chief Nate Harper, plus a dozen other mayors and state police officers, Gov. Ed Rendell urged Congress yesterday to re-enact a ban on the sale and possession of assault weapons, which criminals sometimes use to kill police.

"How much blood has to be spilled in the streets of America before we say enough is enough?" asked Chief Harper, who said he's still grieving over the killings of three Pittsburgh officers on April 4. "The use of assault weapons isn't for sport. It's only meant for harm."

Mr. Ravenstahl also urged Congress to act on the assault weapons ban, which was enacted in 1994 but expired in 2004.

"We need to make sure our officers are protected," said Mr. Ravenstahl. "We need to re-enact the ban on assault weapons. Our officers are out-armed and that has to change."

The mayor also supported two other gun control measures pushed by Mr. Rendell. He wants the state Legislature to require handgun owners to report to police, within 72 hours, any weapons that are lost or stolen, as a way of reducing "straw purchasers," who sell guns to criminals and report them as lost or stolen.

The governor also wants to permit Pennsylvania cities and towns to enact their own gun control laws. Since 1996 the Legislature has given itself the sole authority to pass laws regarding gun sales and possession.

"Gun laws that are needed in Pittsburgh or Philadelphia may not be appropriate for (rural areas like) McKean County," said Mr. Rendell.

Philadelphia, which has had four police officers shot to death in the past two years, and Pittsburgh have passed some gun restrictions, but enforcement is questionable because the state has authority on such issues.

In December Pittsburgh council approved a bill giving gun owners 24 hours to call police if they notice a weapon is missing. It became law without the mayor's signature. He didn't sign it because he thought it was pre-empted by state law and thus unenforceable.

Mr. Rendell said Democratic U.S. Sen. Diane Feinstein of California is preparing to reintroduce the assault weapons ban, but he admitted that getting gun control laws enacted in Washington and Harrisburg would be difficult because of the political power of the National Rifle Association.

Mr. Rendell urged legislators to talk to police officers, who overwhelmingly want assault weapons taken off the streets, and to listen to polls, which have shown as much as 77 percent of the public agrees.

He said that "if a legislator can't do the right thing he should resign." He said the NRA had opposed him in 2002 and 2006 but he was elected by large margins anyway, so legislators shouldn't fear the organization.

Mr. Rendell didn't tout a bill that would limit gun buyers to just one handgun purchase per month, but said towns could enact such a law if the Legislature allows them.

Gun control advocates face long odds in the Legislature. Two yeas ago, Mr. Rendell testified in favor of the "lost and stolen" bill and the "one handgun a month" bill, but couldn't get them out of the House Judiciary Committee.

Some legislators, from both parties, live in rural areas and small towns where many people are strong supporters of the Second Amendment, which protects the rights of gun owners. In such areas many people are hunters or target shooters and oppose any government efforts to restrict them.

Harrisburg Bureau Chief Tom Barnes can be reached at tbarnes@post-gazette.com or 717-787-4254.

[CarmelHP]

This j*ck*ss coughs this crap up every couple of months. Fast Eddie is the lowest of the low-life urban politicos. He flushed Philadelphia even further down the toilet as mayor and is now doing the same with the state.

[BloodEclipse]

"We need to make sure our officers are protected," said Mr. Ravenstahl. "We need to re-enact the ban on assault weapons. Our officers are out-armed and that has to change."

I call BS. With the Militarization of our police forces today even small town police forces have AR's. They are also looking for more.

Militarizing Police Depts. With Your Bailout Money : Lone Star Times

Militarizing Police Depts. With Your Bailout Money

by texpat · 02/11/2009 1:57 pm

George Orwell, call your office !
If prostitution is the world’s oldest profession, then city mayors follow a very close second. In fact, it occurs to me they may be the spiritual offspring of the aforementioned liaisons. Whenever there is loose change or unclaimed dollar bills laying around, mayors can smell them a mile away and if a Sugar Daddy offers free cash, they never stop to question what the vigorish might be. The urban emperors, suburban commissars, the hack and the highbrow, the Republican and Democrat, the apolitical and amoral, the exurban apparatchiks all assemble to line dance down Pennsylvania Avenue like ladies of the evening on the way to a golden score with Big Daddy.
The United States Conference of Mayors has assembled the most ridiculous and repulsive example of government excess I think I have ever seen. Here is a PDF file of the document which stretches to 344 pages. One of the most alarming features of this civic gluttony is the gift list request for funds to buy military SWAT assault equipment for police forces like the examples offered here by Texas blogger and Reason.com contributor, Trey Garrison:

• Frisco wants $125,000 for an armored vehicle and $200,000 for a mobile command vehicle. You know, for all that gang tank warfare going on up in Frisco.

• McKinney wants $5 million for SWAT toys and stuff.

• North Richland Hills wants $51,000 for volunteer patrol volunteers. Let’s throw in $10 for a dictionary so they can look up the word “volunteer.”

• Irving wants $5 million for biometric scanners, digital cameras, RFID scanners — nothing Big Brother there.

• Grand Prairie wants $1.25 million for nicer landscaping around the public safety building.

• And finally, Arlington is really gearing up for urban warfare. Arlington wants $1.6 million for SWAT toys including more equipment for those deadly but camera-friendly no-knock raids, $56,000 for military grade carbines, $625,000 for unmanned aerial surveillance drones, and $130,000 for “covert ops.”

Here is the “Public Safety” wish list from the US Conference of Mayors.
Radley Balko, of The Agitator and contributing editor of Reason, offers these galling examples of cops gone Rambo:

• Sparks, Nevada wants $600,000 to purchase a “live fire” house its SWAT team can shoot up, and another $420,000 for a SWAT armored vehicle.
• Pleasanton, California wants $250,000 to buy a vehicle for its SWAT team.
• Gary, Indiana wants $750,000 for a host of “modernization” upgrades to its police department, including “sub-automatic machine guns” and an “armored vehicl” [sic].
• Hampton, Virginia wants a whopping $3.5 million for “Air Tactical Unit Support and Equipment,” which I’m pretty sure means they want a sweet helicopter for the SWAT team.
• Ottawa, Illinois (population: 18,307) wants $60,000 to purchase, among other things, five “tactical entry rifles.”
• Glendale Heights, Illinois wants $96,000 to purchase red light cameras, and another $67,000 to hire someone to monitor them.
• Toward a more Orwellian America! The following cities requested stimulus funds to supplement, initiate, or upgrade public surveillance camera systems: Brockton, Massachusetts; Buffalo, New York; Burnsville, Minnesota; Caguas, Puerto Rico; Cerritos, California; Columbia, South Carolina; Compton, California; Homestead, Florida; Hormigueros, Puerto Rico; Indianapolis, Indiana; Inglewood, California; Lewiston, Maine; Lorain, Ohio; Lynn, Massachusetts; Marion, Ohio; Merced, California; New Rochelle, New York; North Richland Hills, Texas; Oakland, California; Orange, New Jersey; Orem, Utah; Orlando, Florida; Pembroke Pines, Florida; Ponce, Puerto Rico; Riverdale, Illinois; Shreveport, Louisiana; Silver City, New Mexico; Sumter, South Carolina; Tallahassee, Florida; Warren, Ohio; and Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.
Winston-Salem, North Carolina requested just under $85 million in security-related stimulation. But top prize goes to Tulsa, Oklahoma, which is asking the rest of the country to stimulte its economy with a whopping $135 million in public safety-related requests.
All in all, America’s mayors asking for a little over $5.5 billion in public safety “stimulus.”

The city of La Porte, Texas has applied for $700,000 to build a “Lifestyle Center” while the city of Houston wants a whopping $175,000,000 to build the “Metro Houston Intermodal Terminal” in downtown Houston. I could go on, but I am nauseated by reading these documents. Readers will have to carry on in my absence while I try to recover.

[NateIU10]

Ummmm...since when did the AWB ban posession?

[tv1217]

It's not our fault if their crappy police departments are "out armed"

Even (at least some of) the police here in St John have M14s in their cars.

[printcraft]

Originally Posted by NateIU10

Ummmm...since when did the AWB ban posession?

That's called wishful thinking of fast eddie's part or on the part
of the "reporter"

[CulpeperMM]

Not only is the bailout money militarizing the police, but has effectively made them local branches of Federal Law Enforcement. The (marginal) checks are coming from the big printing press in DC. That's who the chiefs are sucking up to now: Obama & Company (DHS). They want more money and more cool toys (like tanks).

I think this is a big reason for Indiana SR 42 (state sovereignty) passage by such a wide margin (44-3)