<![CDATA[sensitive places]]>

Philly Man Uses Gun to Fend Off Attack at Subway Station

November 20, 2023 by Cam Edwards Leave a Comment

Officially, police in Philadelphia remain tight-lipped about a shooting incident at a subway station on Sunday night, but according to FOX 29 reporter Steve Keeley’s sources, the shots appear to have been fired in self-defense after “several” teenage suspects were seen attacking a man. The victim drew his gun and fired at least one shot in response, sending the assailants scrambling.

FOX 29 reports that the shooting took place in 15th Street Station in Center City, where a 51-year-old man was recently the victim of a robbery involving multiple assailants.

According to police, at about 5 a.m. on Nov. 9, a 51-year-old male, was assaulted by an unknown man on the SEPTA platform.
As can be seen in the video, the assailant grabbed the hood on the victim’s coat and dragged him down a set of stairs during the incident.
In this incident, officials said, the attacker and several other individuals assaulted the victim and took a cell phone and his money.

No arrests have been made in that case, and it’s unclear whether police believe the same group might be responsible for both incidents.

Unlike a lot of Democrat-run cities, Philly’s public transportation network known as SEPTA doesn’t prohibit concealed carry holders from bearing arms on its property, which is refreshing. And with the system’s transit police threatening to go on strike as early as today, I wouldn’t be surprised if more riders end up bearing arms of their own in the near future.

SEPTA management and the Fraternal Order of Transit Police Lodge 109 met until about 8 p.m. Sunday and had talked for several hours on Saturday in an effort to forestall a strike. The transit police officers’ contract expired in March and union members voted last month to authorize a walkout.
Members of the FOTP have said they want wages that are closer to those offered by other police departments in the region. The union argues a pay disparity has contributed to understaffing amid rider concerns about crime and antisocial behavior on transit.
“While SEPTA is disappointed that the FOTP — in the midst of negotiations being mediated by the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry — arbitrarily selected tomorrow as a strike deadline, we hope you will join us in encouraging FOTP leadership to remain at the bargaining table,” SEPTA CEO Leslie S. Richards said in a letter Sunday night to City Councilmember Isaiah Thomas and eight colleagues.

The transit police did get a sizeable bump in salary last year, but union officials say it’s not enough to keep officers from departing for greener pastures like Amtrak or even the Philadelphia Police Department. Meanwhile, violent crime on public transportation in the city has been surging over the past couple of years, even as ridership remains far below pre-pandemic levels.

Though cities like New York City, Washington, D.C., and Chicago maintain that public transit are “sensitive places” where concealed carry can and should be banned, the fact is that violent crime is present on every one of their transportation networks, and there’s no guarantee that a police officer will be around to stop any given incident. Banning concealed carry in these locations not only prevents lawful gun owners from carrying while they’re on board a train or bus, which is bad enough, but it also stops those folks who depend on public transportation from being able to protect themselves over the course of their daily routine.

SEPTA can’t ensure the safety of its riders any more than D.C.’s Metro Transit or Chicago’s CTA, but at least its passengers have the ability to protect themselves from violent attacks if necessary. Allowing concealed carry on SEPTA hasn’t led to a “Wild West” free-for-all either. There’s no evidence that concealed carry holders have been responsible for any of the violent crimes reported by transit police, but it appears that at least one concealed carry holder used his gun to stop a violent crime from escalating any further.

California Gun Laws Causing Frustration

October 23, 2023 by Tom Knighton Leave a Comment

No one expects the state of California to do anything that might benefit gun owners. If any state can be said to be hostile to the Second Amendment, it’s the Golden State.

I mean, they called for a constitutional convention just to push gun control, for crying out loud.

But their own gun control laws are a big enough problem for those who live there. A number of gun rights activists are expressing frustration over those laws.

Action News Now spoke with Barry Deditch, a recruiter with the California Rifle Association, who said he is frustrated with the new laws.
“To buy ammunition you now have to do a background check for that at one time you could come to a gun show buy ammunition and walk out the door,” Deditch said. “Now if you purchased a gun in the last five years it is a $1, if you haven’t its $19 then there’s tax. It’s the same with guns.”
Advocates of gun carrying, like Deditch , believe the new laws are unconstitutional and infringing on their second amendment rights.
“The laws are made for law-abiding people, the ones who don’t care about gun laws are still going to get guns no matter what, even though its harder on us the criminal will always get a gun from some place,” Deditch said.

Deditch is absolutely correct.

Plus, it’s pretty clear California didn’t think through the unintended consequences of some of these laws.

While the restrictions on ammo aren’t particularly new, let’s look at these fees for a moment.

If you bought a gun within the last five years, that $1 isn’t a huge thing, but not everyone has bought a gun that recently. Many bought one or two guns back in the day and just shoot those. They’re on the hook for a $19 fee for a background check.

Well, since California doesn’t have ammo rationing, it just makes sense to buy a lot of ammo when you get it. After all, another $19 isn’t as big of a deal when you’re buying a couple thousand rounds as when you’re just getting a box of defensive ammo.

That means a lot more ammo being bought at a time and available for theft by criminals, thus undermining the stated purpose of the background checks in the first place.

Plus, since ammo isn’t serialized, straw purchases for ammo would be pretty easy.

Thus the frustration with California’s gun laws.

The latest law bans the carry of firearms in “sensitive places.” In this regard, California isn’t different than some other states. Yet the issue is still the same. The law-abiding will abide by the law. The criminals, on the other hand, will keep carrying guns in these places unless physical security is present. Since parks are considered sensitive places in California, though, there aren’t likely to be metal detectors at all such places.

That’s the issue with gun control and there’s no way officials there are oblivious to this fact. We know the governor of New Mexico wasn’t, so it’s not a stretch to figure California officials know as well.

So the frustration is real and justified. Let’s just hope we can figure out a way to put an end to it.

Massachusetts gun owners get their October Surprise

October 5, 2023 by Cam Edwards Leave a Comment

After months of closed-door meetings and shadowy scheming on the part of a handful of Massachusetts lawmakers, Rep. Michael Day unveiled his revised anti-gun omnibus bill on Thursday morning. While the legislation now has a new bill number, most of the problematic portions of HD 4420 are still included, according to the Gun Owners Action League.

The “revised” anti-rights bill from Michael Day has been released. It will take some time for us to get through it but it appears to be a slightly shorter version of the same attack on our rights as before, just with a different number.https://t.co/Npwkf04Lja pic.twitter.com/LMr3Wo7SId
— GOAL (@GOALupdate) October 5, 2023

GOAL is right that it’s going to take some time to wade through the particulars of the newest version of the “Lawful Citizens Imprisonment Act.” Unless you’re already familiar with the most intricate details of Massachusetts gun law, it’s difficult to determine at a quick glance all of the changes that HD 4607 would impose on gun owners. It will take hours, if not days, to pore over the text of HD 4607 to see exactly what’s in it, but when I took a cursory look at the bill I noticed a few issues that immediately stood out.

Day’s bill appears to offer new restrictions on who can possess and carry a firearm in the state that go far beyond current federal law, as well as new restrictions on the type of guns that can be sold in the state. In fact, if I’m reading this section of HD 4607 accurately, the bill imposes a ban on all guns sold without “safety devices”; a move that could open the door to only so-called smart guns being offered for sale.

Any firearm sold within the commonwealth without a safety device designed to prevent the discharge of such firearm by unauthorized users and approved by the colonel of state police including, but not limited to, mechanical locks or devices designed to recognize and authorize, or otherwise allow the firearm to be discharged only by its owner or authorized user, by solenoid use-limitation devices, key activated or combination trigger or handle locks, radio frequency tags, automated fingerprint identification systems or any other biometric means, provided, that such device is commercially available, shall be defective and the sale of such a firearm shall constitute a breach of warranty under section 2–314 of chapter 106 and an unfair or deceptive trade act or practice under section 2 of chapter 93A.

The legislation leaves it up to the state police to determine what’s acceptable, so a trigger or cable lock might suffice. On the other hand, the colonel in charges of making that determination could also conclude that only “smart gun” technology is capable of preventing the discharge of a firearm by unauthorized users, rendering all traditional firearms banned under state law without the legislature instituting a ban directly.

Another sign that Day and his anti-gun allies are gunning for a ban on traditional firearms is the creation of a “special legislative commission” tasked with investigating “the status, feasibility, and utility of emerging firearm technologies, including but not limited to personalized firearm technology and microstamp technology.”

The study shall include: (i) a review of existing and developing personalized firearm and microstamp technologies; (ii) an investigation of the accuracy, effectiveness and utility of personalized firearm and microstamp technologies; (iii) an evaluation of the commercial availability of personalized firearm and microstamp technologies, both in the production of new firearms and modification of existing firearms; (iv) an investigation of the cost and impacts associated with requiring the use of personalized firearm or microstamp technologies in the commonwealth; and (vi) evaluation of the feasibility and utility of a personalized firearm technology tax incentive program.

Surprisingly, Day’s revised bill doesn’t include an extensive list of newly prohibited places where lawful carry is banned, at least outright. The devil is always in the details, but at first glance the legislation does differ in one critical respect from what we’ve seen in states like California, New York, New Jersey, and Maryland, where lawmakers have sought to ban concealed carry from all private property by default unless signs are posted declaring otherwise.

(i) a place owned, leased, or under the control of state, county or municipal government and used for the purpose of government administration, judicial or court administrative proceedings, or correctional services, including in or upon any part of the buildings, grounds, or parking areas thereof;
(ii) a location in use at the time of possession as a polling place or for the storage or tabulation of ballots ;
(iii) an elementary school, secondary school, college or university including transport used for students of said institution, including in or upon any part of the buildings, grounds, or parking areas thereof; and
(iv) any private, residential dwelling of another, not held open to the public, unless the person in possession of the firearm (A) has a valid firearms license or permit issued under section 124 to 125B, inclusive, of chapter 140 and (B) has been given express authorization to carry a firearm in said dwelling by the property owner or lessee, or an agent thereof; provided, that express authorization shall be signified by unambiguous written or verbal authorization or by the posting of clear and conspicuous signage on the building or the premises by the property owner or lessee, or an agent thereof, indicating that possession of a firearm is authorized.

We’ll give the good folks at GOAL a couple of days to cross-reference existing statutes and decipher the legalese in Day’s new legislation, but I’ll be welcoming Jim Wallace back to Cam & Co for an in-depth look at the dangers in Day’s bill next week. In the meantime, I encourage you to take a look at the text of HD 4607 for yourself, though I’ll warn you in advance that it’s probably going to be a frustrating exercise to figure out exactly what’s changing.