It’s annoying: taxpayers paying for pol’s failed efforts to infringe on constituents’ natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms. Chicago Mayor Rahm’s mob recently shelled out a million bucks for trying to stop gun stores from selling guns in The Windy City. Today, The City of Brotherly Love announced that it’s opened its wallet for aggrieved gun guys and gals. “The Nutter administration [sic] has settled a class-action lawsuit with 3,265 people who appealed the revocation or denial of a Pennsylvania License to Carry Firearms and had their personal information posted on an interactive city website,” philly.com reports. “The 2,188 people whose information was part of the live database on the L&I website will receive . . .
about $450 each. The 1,077 people who are part of a separate class in the lawsuit – those whose information was kept in a city database accessible to city employees and contractors but not posted online for the general public – will receive $25 each. Thirty percent of the $1.4 million will go to attorneys and other fee.”
Constitutional carry anyone? Seriously, not only is the entire permitting process unconstitutional it’s prone to inefficiency and abuse. And, lest we forget, the possibility of something far darker . . . [h/t MH]
We have to keep hitting them in the pocketbooks when utterly embarrassing them in court.
The wallet does hurt, however winning in court and forcing them to recognize our God given rights is worse. That wins for all.
Unless I’m mistaken, that’s taxpayer money. They’ll just up taxes next year. Citizens there should be furious about the privacy violation as well as it’s logical consequence – the losing side of a lawsuit.
Though I guess nowadays they already have a few budget line items for such things.
As they say, money is fungible. They will just ask for more Federal dollars next year. So everyone in the country will be paying or worse our grandchildren will be paying.
Democrats? Embarrassed?
More important are the LTCF reforms that were part of the settlement. Those are major. Philly was/is a horrible place to get a LTCF. The PPD was denying LTCF applications over things like parking tickets and L&I citations.
“More important are the LTCF reforms that were part of the settlement. Those are major. Philly was/is a horrible place.” There, I fixed that for you.
There needs to be some kind of accountability for these politicians. Maybe just set up a direct debit on their accounts instead of wasting public money when they break the law.
Sounds like there wil soon be 2,188 new guns sold in Philly. That’s what I call progress!
Not at $25 a piece.
Reforms should be made to come out of the pockets of the politcians when they lose such a law suit!
Now if we can just get the voters worked up about their tax dollars being wasted and get some of these politicians standing in the unemployment line after the next election.
need to change law to make pols personally liable for these types of violations. . . . that will fix stupid
You want to hear stupid? Try getting an unrestricted LTC in Springfield MA., you will be amazed at how ignorant and condescending the top “brass” are. Control freaks at their finest.
My buddy managed to do it, I have to admit I was surprised, thank god I live on the other side of the river. It amazes me that two individuals can live yards apart, but depending on their addresses one can be arbitrarily denied their rights. I hope some day GOAL can organize a challenge to the laws on the basis that as a whole, the patchwork of MA law is very ambiguous and unclear.
This is terrible precedent. Government information should be by default public. Democracy dies behind closed doors.
The U.S. is a representative Republic, not a Democracy.
A Representative Republic protects the rights of all citizens, not just the majority, and is founded on the principle of elected individuals representing the people, with elections providing the opportunity for change.
Two wolves and one sheep voting on what to have for dinner is a democracy.
Liberty is the sheep being armed and contesting the vote.
If you’re so hip on information being open, aidian holder, how about responding with you giving your date of birth, current address and social security number?
That reply was uncalled for sir. Very rude.
Its not government information its people’s PII.
Well, I suppose if, in true Statist fashion, one views all people within the borders as Subjects of the Crown (or some ideological equivalent), then private information COULD be considered “Government Information.”
Or something.
OK, information about government actions. Happy with that clarification?
Information about legal actions like the denial of the RTKBA at issue here should absolutely be public. Information about licenses and permits issued by government agencies should absolutely be public.
In fact, the default should be that every scrap of paper and byte of data generated by every official, bureacrat, and agency should be public, with secrecy being the (rare) exception to the rule.
That’s the only way we the people can keep the power of the state in check. Democracy dies behind closed doors. Or if that’s too abstract, try this: government agencies like to screw us in private.
Consider this: living in a ‘may issue’ state, it was only because I was able to access records of CCW applications and permits that I was able to show that the sheriff was giving CCW permits to cronies and campaign donors while not approving them for everyday people.
The scumbag shoulda gone to jail over it, but he was already on his way out before we broke the story, so we had to settle for destroying his legacy — and his successor was much better on issuing CCW permits.
Of course, we didn’t go off and list everyone with a gun in town. Partly because, why would you, and partly because our web editor sucked….
Names equate to destiny! A guy named “Nutter” being mayor of Philadelphia is just as awesome and appropriate as a guy named “Jeff Cooper” working in the gun industry. http://ttagstaging.wpenginepowered.com/2014/07/robert-farago/breaking-beretta-pulls-maryland/#more-329287
As usual the lawyers get new BMWs while the actual victims get barely enough for a car payment on a BMW.