Mathis: PA’s Preemption Law is an NRA Tax Grab!

1. He is complaining about there being some consequences to breaking the law.

   Maybe we should take out the punishments for people illegally possessing guns. After all, they shouldn’t be put in jail for not abiding by a state law when they may have had more local circumstances that they felt warranted them carrying a gun.

2. It is exactly an infringement. The purpose of the law has nothing to do with keeping guns out of the hands of criminals. It has everything to do with ensuring that the only guns that are legal are the guns that have government permission to be legal. It is one of the ways to create a registration system that has teeth, when confiscations are imposed, as they are being already in California, for instance.

   The government has a record that you have a gun. You say that you no longer have it. What happened to it? Well, it was stolen… go directly to jail.

   It also serves, as noted, as another way to chill the exercise of second amendment rights by making that exercise difficult and legally dangerous.

   • It’s alot like the south during reconstruction, taking liberties with the law and imposing their own local tyranny.

     • “It’s alot like the south during reconstruction, taking liberties with the law and imposing their own local tyranny.”

       No, sweety, that was all done by Democrat Carpet Baggers and the “Union” representatives who flooded south to steal all they could.

   • Or as noted during the Nazi occupation of Holland (Danka for the gun registrations)…. Can’t find that pistol from the war 15 years ago? BAMM! Au viterzein!

     http://stephenhalbrook.com/registration_article/registration.html

     • Good read

3. Ok. Let’s have the politicians who vote for these laws have to pay PERSONALLY for plaintiffs’ legal fees. There, no taxpayer funds and end of complaint, right?

   • Or how about having the politicians compelled to reimburse the municipality for expenses incurred during the defense of their flawed law? You know, that pesky accountability thing?

   • That’s how Florida is. If found to be acting in direct contravention of the law, the politicians are personally liable, not the municipalities they work for.

4. Hey, this is a GREAT article. Well researched, well thought out, well argued. You guys have really come a long way in the past year. TTAG is fast becoming a “must-read” for me on a daily basis…. I must say though, you should stack comments with the newest on the top- makes following and commenting much easier. Keep up the great work!

   • “I must say though, you should stack comments with the newest on the top- makes following and commenting much easier.”

     No, it doesn’t. The comments and the replies to the comments are currently arranged in a “thread” format that clarifies what (and to whom) the replies are directed.

     It’s not perfect. The alternative IS worse.

     • Gary, have you tried standing on your head while reading the comments?

5. So maybe my NRA membership will be free? How ’bout ammo?

6. We’ve had preemption in AL since 1971. Imagine if every little burg along the interstate could drop the speed limit to 45 (or whatever) and call it a felony if exceeded in it’s jurisdiction. This is why preemption laws make sense.

7. Add Michigan Open Carry to the list of Georgia Carry, Florida Carry and Minnesota’s Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance. MOC has been successful getting scores of cities and towns to strike laws that violated preemption. Usually that is done without resorting to the courts. Often just having a conversation with the appropriate people suffices. But we did enter into one court battle that went all the way up to the Michigan Supreme Court (who declined to hear the case, so MOC’s win in the Court of Appeals stands). The good citizens of mid-Michigan paid over $100,000 in legal costs in an effort by government agencies to try and avoid preemption.

   Michigan Open Carry has crafted a new bill (HB 5500) that adds teeth to preemption in Michigan and, if passed, will hold the people in local municipalities personally liable for enacting and enforcing unlawful restrictive gun laws. Not only that, but similar to PA’s bill will allow organizations to have standing to sue as well.

8. What really irks me about this is I’m quite sure he would be more than happy to sue some local municipalities if they were found to be in violation of a state law he supports. Hypocrisy on either side of the debate is something I can not tolerate.

   • Beat me to it. Concur.

9. Nice job of proving what a lying scum bag this Mathis guy is. Seems the left is getting more and more desperate as “their President’s” Administration keeps falling further and further apart. Keep electing Democratic Socialists and another Democratic Socialist President if you relish being lied to (as the present Administration has done) and being served up hysterical, spurious propaganda like Joel Mathis is offering.

   • Being mostly a moderate, I will tell you that they are all lying mofos. Just because the repubs are gun owners’ buddies now is no sign of what they will be later. It is all about money power and having the votes to make things happen for THEM. Not us. The only people with real standing have big money IMO.

     • It is pretty clear to me where the Democratic Socialists (formerly The Democratic Party) are taking us, so I am saying “Stop voting for them!”. The difference in how we see it is that the Democratic Socialists are using our Tax money, and unparallelled amounts of borrowed money, to buy votes with Big Government hand-outs, whereas the “Big Money” people you refer to use their own money to buy votes to curtail Big Government’s infringement on their right to make money. After nearly six years of Barak H. Obama’s policies, it also seems pretty clear to me which tactic benefits the most people in the long-run. Look at the history of the American Middle Class post WWII to the present and it will come clear to you.

       • The middle class began a nosedive during the Bush administration when the GOP was spending money like drunk Democrats. You know, the geniuses who financed two wars with tax cuts? The same ones who destroyed the economy in 2008? Since then the economy has been weak apparantly due to a struggling middle class who to continue to see their net worth shrink as it is cannabalized for the benefit of the wealthy. Who have never had it so good. Under those socialist Democrats. Recheck your facts. This clownshow we call our government has not been led well by either party.

         • “This clownshow we call our government has not been led well by either party.” We agree on something.

           Right now the National debt is $17.86 Trillion. When George W. Bush left Office, it was $10.63 Trillion, up $4.3 Trillion from when he took Office. That means Barak H. Obama has increased the National debt by $7.23 Trillion in just under six years and is on pace to double the increase of G.W. Bush without fighting a major war (yet). The US Gross Domestic Product was $16.8 Trillion in 2013.

           George W. Bush’s Presidency was ruled by the situation created by the World Trade Center Attack on 9/11/2001, and, yeah, Bush ended-up spending a lot of money on the war against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq owing to bad intel about non-existent “weapons of mass destruction”. Barak Obama has only had to end-up the war in Iraq and has had no other major crises in his first four years, and those in the next two years are largely of his making. He got elected pledging to “build a strong middle class”, yet six years later the middle class is worse off. Obama has borrowed $7.23 Trillion dollars and things are getting worse as millions of Americans are finding-out their Health Plans under Obamacare will no longer be available, the Government “subsidies” they thought they got aren’t really legal and those who don’t lose their Healthcare outright are getting massive increases in premiums, just to focus on Obama’s “signature ‘achievement'”.

           You seem to have inferred I think the Republicans” are great guys. Well, I don’t, but the Democratic Socialists are hell-bent on “transforming” the United States into a European-style Socialist Dictatorship, which we have seen does not work. If it did the Soviet Union would still be around. I am saying “Stop voting for the Democratic Socialists!” because where they are going and have taken us is only going to get worse.

           If you need to blame someone, blame the Roosevelt’s. Teddy invented American Progressivism and Franklin Delano transformed it into Big Intrusive Government and sold-out Eastern Europe to Stalin during WWII. It’s almost moot who has dirty hands in the past, but it is important to recognize who has dirty hands right now and try to stop them.

           Frankly, I think we have passed the tipping point on a lot of levels politically, economically, socially and morally. Failed policies and economics in the so-called “Blue” States are driving people to more prosperous “Red” States, but the “refugees” are too stupid to recognize what happened to them in the State they fled and vote the same way in the new State putting the local Democratic Socialists in power there, which will ruin that economy and society, as well. It’s a twist on the old “Domino Effect” hypotheses of the Cold War in the late 1950’s and 1960’s leading into the Viet Nam War.

           The “nosedive” for the Middle Class began at Lyndon Johnson’s launch of “The Great Society”, which included a package of Government sponsored (at Taxpayer Expense) ineffectual “programs” that entrenched expensive Big Tax and Borrow Government. It took a few decades to wring the vitality out of the US Economy as Progressives and Socialists advanced their agenda, but now we have got to a point nearing “no return” and probably fatally beyond.

           I don’t think there are any “good guys” in either major party, but we can clearly see that Obama and his disciple/sycophants think they have got everything so nicely sewed up they can blatantly lie to us at will. To my mind, if you want to be a “moderate” and rationalize/defend/allow what they are doing you will only end-up hurting yourself and your progeny. Me, I am set for the remainder of my life and see myself as one of the last generations that got ahead by working. I have no reason to get into pissing contests with people who are in denial about what is happening to the once great United States and who we need to stop in their destructive agenda…no reason except it seems right for me to want for you and yours what I had. So, if you don’t want to hear it, it’s perfectly fine with me.

       • Like you, I am not enamored with either party. But we are far apart otherwise. To begin with debt is only unstable to the extent it exceeds the value of underlying assets and the current debt structure is fine. Not so 2008. The national debt ran up greatly recently but initial rescue packages proposed by Bush were hefty also. Obama the socialist arguments are stupid. The wealthy never had it better, no president has presided over a higher % of govt job cuts. If he truly wanted govt control of the economy he could simply let the banking system fail where the govt would have taken over banking. Holder wouldn’t even go after the thebankers on criminal charges. BTW Europe is plutocratic not socialistic. The wealthy over there, those related to the former monarchs, got to keep their wealth (and their heads) but had to give society a minimum of support. Nothing like a state takeover of the economy. Obamacare? Don’t like it but didn’t like the old system either. New one is easier to tweak tho. Congress fell down on that job. I don’t mean to defend the dems here (I resent the way they support the minorities-2/3 of population and pretend that everything in white guy land is fine!) but they are far from the only problem.

         • Fair enough. Maybe we see things more similarly than differently. When you look at the whole picture over time there are a paltry few pairs of “clean hands” to be found, and they failed to change the course of things. I may respond further in a day or two. Other obligations are cramping my time just now.

           I will think over your remarks and I thank-you for your time and a good debate. I enjoyed it very much!

       • BTW the red states should be doing well. They are the beneficiaries of govt spending! Blue states export billions to them every year. The hypocracy.

       • Yes. Hope to hear from you. It is obvious you have more than a pissing match mindset. 🙂 I like to be challenged with facts so that I can learn from my errors. I don’t have all the answers that’s for sure.

     • NOTE: This may end-up somewhere odd owing to the current “Reply” format here on TTAG
       @Mike in St Louis from DerryM

       After thinking over our exchange of opinions i see two points that need to be addressed.

       First, I do not call Obama a “socialist”. I regard him as a Democratic Socialist. There is a difference. However, I do see how you might infer I am calling him a socialist. Even the Socialist International Party says there is no purely “socialist” State in the World.

       See http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/faq.php?question=socialistcountries

       Democratic Socialism wants to marry a democratic government (usually some sort of Parliamentary or Republic) with a Marxist socialist economy where the money, means of production and distribution of goods, services and land are controlled by the State to a greater or lesser extent. There is a lot of variation in form and success amongst the various Democratic Socialist States. Some work pretty well (China, Norway, Denmark, Netherlands, New Zealand) and some do not (Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy, North Korea).

       My objection to Democratic Socialism brings me to my second point. I sense that you object to what we might call the American plutocracy, or that 1% that controls an amount of money, means of production and dsitribution amounting to more than the aggregate wealth of about 40% of the middle class. I don’t have a problem with that because I view a capitalist, free market economy as a natural phenomena that creates a natural redistribution of wealth and is self-regulated by the dynamics of its own mechanisms.

       Interference by Federal, State and Local Governments disrupts this mechanism, which somehow signals the Government to be even more meddlesome and engenders further disruptiuon. The net result is higher Taxes and more Government borrowing while jobs are lost and private incomes stagnate. This cuts the Tax base which results in more Government taxation and borrowing. It is a proverbial ‘vicious circle”, which is slowly, but surely, destroying the American middle class.

       In the meantime, you might notice that Politicians and Government employees have created their own “pseudo plutocracy” in Washington D.C., as reported by Fox News in “Boom Town”.

       See http://video.foxnews.com/v/2119747570001/welcome-to-boomtown-washington-dc/#sp=show-clips

       My point of view is that I prefer what was once a successful and beneficial plutocracy composed of private persons to the Governemnt pseudo plutocracy composed of Politicians and Bureaucrats. It is easy for career Politicians and Bureaucrats to decide what should/will happen to you and me because they risk nothing of their own, have little accountability for their screw-ups and can always get more “public” money to throw after the issue while collecting good salaries and benefits. No risk. No liability. No reason to even attempt to be competent.

       Look at the unsuccessful Democratic Socialist States and you see a self-created Political and Bureaucratic pseudo plutocracy with wealth, priviledge and security far above the masses they rule. I cannot and do not accept that future for the United States, although it is pretty much already here.

       I object to Barak Obama, his Democratic Socialist sycophants and their pseudo plutocracy because of the harm they are doing to our Country, and believe firmly they should be stopped, which is why I write as I did in my original comment.

       • One addendum: The “pseudo plutocracy” in Washington D.C. is NOT the creation of Barak Obama and his sycophants. It existed prior to his ascension to the Presidency and was probably well established as far back as the Nixon Presidency. I realized that erroneous inference would likely be taken from my last few paragraphs and wanted to set it straight. Obama did not create a pseudo plutocracy, he is merely taking advantage of it.
         Further, as we look at BOTH major parties, most everyone in Washington D.C. on both sides takes advantage of it, personally and politically, so both Parties deserve to be reviled for this corruption.

10. The stupid never ends. It must be they believe people are stupid and will simply take their word as gospel because I can never understand why they out right lie and expect people to believe their lies. I like to think that journalist like this guy are more ignorant than dishonest but I keep leaning towards intellectually dishonest.

    • The amount of ignorance in the average person is astounding. Sit them in front of a map of the US states without any names on the states and ask them to ID every state, and most can’t. I see it every day from people with college degrees. Better yet, try the same test with their own state and ask them to ID every town or county.

      • lol ask those same people to identify songs or movies by only half-second clips and they score through the roof! I can’t remember which but some late night show did that experiment with a “man on the street” bit back in the 90’s, the gist of which was “people learn what they want to learn.”

      • Jimmy Kimmel does skits like this, and they are hilarious. I saw one of the intertubez the other day where they were going around asking people who Joe Biden was. One guy says “I dont know, is he a terrorist?”

        • Just one step above.

11. It’s starting to look like the bill will die in committee anyway…

12. Theft reporting requirements are also another way to make sure all the newly drafted onerous restrictions are enforced as much as possible.

    “Yes, officer, I’d like to report a stolen gun.”

    “Ok, please fill out this fresh 4473 oh geez, look at that… your neighbors just voted for the “Mental Illness Reporting” bill, and it appears you visited a shrink in 1988. I’m afraid that made you a prohibited person at the time of this theft, so you will have to spend a mandatory 5 years in prison for violating the “Loony Gun Runner” law, which your neighbors also voted for.”

    The second amendment is supposed to be a preemption for ALL of this insanity!

13. The law abiding, proper procedural solution to his complaint is easy: he should seek to repeal the preemption law. He could spend his own time and money finding a sponsor for a repeal bill, campaigning/lobbying for it and see if it passes.

    Will of the people will kick in, though; I don’t think a preemption bill would pass.

    But, like so many anti’s, they want to circumvent the laws THEY don’t like, all the time complaining about us gun owners that expend enormous effort (and sometimes money!) knowing and obeying the our State’s laws.

14. But if the government wanted to tax the people to give that money to gun control groups it would be ok for this jerk.

    • Excellent point.

      Yep, they have no problem when tax money is used to push their cherished ideologies on everyone else.

      Be interesting to dig a bit to see if any public money was making its way to MAIG or EFGS, or any other anti group.

      • Or even better, FOREIGN money. Just sayin’…

15. Just enforce federal preemption. Shall not be infringed and all. Oh, I forgot, that hasn’t meant anything for a very long time now.

16. This discussion is moot. The Republicans in the PA senate already killed the bill.

17. He also ignores what is really going to happen. With exception of maybe a large city or two who are so anti-gun that they are willing to waste their tax payers, all the small towns will vacate their anti-gun laws before the law enters effect.

    That is what happened in Florida, virtually all the laws were vacated before the enhanced preemption law went into effect. Even many anti-air gun laws were vacated. In my burb the law that prohibited people shooting airguns in their backyard was part of the same firearm ordinance, which they repealed as a whole. So I am looking at buying the Crossman AR upper, so I can practice in my backyard.

18. As far as I can tell, this bill, should it become law, would make it easier and ultimately less costly for citizens to ensure that the government abides by the law? I’ve no problem with that.

    If anything, I’d want it to go further and hold government officials personally responsible, civilly and criminally, for violating preemption laws. I’m seeing localities able to pay off plaintiffs with taxpayer money here. Maybe that adds up and maybe that reaches persuasive perches for smaller towns. For Philly and Pitt? I’m not so sure. They may drag litigation out interminably.

    I’ll take it, though. It’s several good steps in the right direction. Who knows? Maybe the NRA and friends can turn enough of a profit suing scofflaw cities to finance other, even stronger initiatives elsewhere.

19. This Bill is pretty much what I-591 is in WA.

20. I don’t understand. If someone steals your property why would you not report it? I understand if YOU deal with it and the perp vanishes, shoot, shovel, shutup. This don’t apply to a theft you can’t avenge. So, why would an honest citizen NOT report the theft of their, very valuable, property. What am I missing?

    • 1. Because they do not trust the police.
      2. Because the firearm stolen does not have a serial number, so recovery is highly unlikely. (there are millions legally without serial numbers)
      3. Because they do not want to be listed in a police report as a “gun owner”.
      4. Because the time and effort of reporting costs them more than the gun is worth.
      5. Because the gun was stolen without their knowledge, and the utility of reporting it to the police is minimal.

    • You’re not necessarily missing anything, though Dean listed several reasons for not wanting to report it. I don’t have an issue with reporting, in theory. What I have serious issues with is the mandating of that reporting, and the potential for criminal penalties (even if they’re small ones) for failure to report. To turn your example around, sure, if someone steals your property you might want to report it, but can you think of any other property where that reporting is mandated by law, with penalties attached for failure/noncompliance?

      • Vehicles? Prescription drugs?

        I have never bought the “I didn’t know it was gone” line in any case where that weapon has been missing for several months or years. You got so many guns lying around and take such poor control of where they are that you don’t know one is missing? If it is stolen and used immediately before you know your property was robbed? OK. Plausible. You walk in your home/business and see you have been broke into the first thing you do is inventory your weapons, second is call police. You are not reporting a stolen gun then you are hiding something to begin with.

        My problem with it is there is no statewide epidemic of weapons being stolen and used in crimes. There is a massive problem with it happening in Philthydelphia region. Perhaps prosecution of and no leniency for the POSs doing it would be a better plan than some new, convoluted law. Why are firearms charges always the first thing dropped in criminal cases? Who, precisely, is responsible for that? What is their rationale for that stupidity? And yet I, who has committed no crime, am the focus of legislatures, municipalities and law enforcement. I being to perceive a pattern in all this.

        Again, just to be clear, a weapon is stolen from you and you refuse to report it you clearly are already doing some sort of criminal sh*t, otherwise you would report your stolen property.

        • Again, show me a law where reporting of the theft (or loss) of a vehicle or prescription drugs is mandated by law to the individual. I just spent a half hour on Google and can find nothing of the kind for Florida. My problem isn’t the reporting; I’ve said that. My problem is the mandating, with attached penalties for not doing so. That requirement and threat would have near zero effect on crime — it’s not like they’re going to look harder for my stuff once it’s reported — while simply adding more stupid BS for the individual. It’s not even a particularly onerous requirement, it’s just more red tape, and another way for you to potentially get jammed up if something does go missing.

          • I knew the mandated reporting was not going to fly here in PA already, been following this and made my views known to my district reps a long time ago, repeatedly. My state and Congressional reps/Senators get tired of hearing from me, hell, W’s admin blocked my emails as spam, twice, over various issues. And don’t even get me started on Obamacare. 100s of hours and thousands of pages of printout, a full set of each iteration of THAT nightmare and we still got f**ked.

            Vehicles? Your car is stolen and used in the commission of a crime YOU are going to be in a jam if you did not report it stolen. Drugs? Let the cops find a prescription bottle with your name and address on it in someone else’s possession. You going to be spending a pile of money getting out of that mess. Specific laws on books? I don’t know. Just know people get in trouble over both those on a rather routine basis. Go to jail over a mistake? Happens. A lot more than it should.

            Will a mandatory reporting of stolen guns get passed some place? Probably. Chicago/Illinois seem likely candidates for that sh*t. I think Washington state is in process of doing in this years legislative session. Did Connecticut or MA include that in any of their kneejerk stupidity. I would have to search it to see, that said, I would not put it past those packs of nazis. Seems to me that DC failed in that part of their anti-gun kabuki dance, too.

        • You’re not thinking far enough ahead – ¤when¤ the gun-grabbers decide to ban “xyz” rifles, these reporting laws ¤will¤ be used to make those who don’t comply into criminals. That may be “criminal shit” to you, but to an estimated 60-80% of otherwise lawful gun owners in ban states, it’s the new reality. You can’t have a “boating accident” if these reporting laws go through.

          • Look. If you have “legally” purchased any firearm in America in the last 40 years you ARE in a registry of gun owners. May not know specifically what you personally own, they just know you bought a gun. And if real firearms confiscation happens that is ALL they need to know.

            Don’t delude yourself. When leftists make their putsch against Americans mere suspicion is all they will use, and with control of media and governmental bodies throughout our country it is all they will need. Which side of the barricade you going to be on? That is the only choice left, really.

21. Its such a good idea, it should be extended to other basic rights (I am thinking of the 4th Amendment and voting rights). My only question is how can a state end up with 2,600 political subdivisions? It sounds like a lot of 1-square mile fiefs and serious quantities of nimbyism.

22. Where could these laws go wrong?

    Lets start by *assuming* the government can maintain an accurate database of firearms ownership for over *50* years.. (places like NY and Chiraq have had them for prolly 30 years already, right?).. no chance for inaccuracies there, amirite!

    Then, lets assume there’s even *one* evil gun-dealer who wants to sell guns to terrorists & thugs. What *better* place to tag these “weapons of war” than to file a false sales transaction against one of the law-abiding citizens in your atf-required “bound book”. You have all their info, the feces won’t likely hit the fan for years, and you can make quick money in the meantime. Heck, you could report false sales for years, bury the guns in a storage locker & sell them by the case during your last week in business, right before you retire to canada.

    Pretty easy (and profitable) to game this system if the anti’s get their wish and every gun is in a database. And thats assuming the database was ever accurate in the first place.

23. Wow, even for a gun grabber this guy is dumb. Like as in “has no reading comprehension skills” kind of dumb.

24. http://www.teflexpress.co.uk

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