Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf, Pittsburgh Mayor William Peduto and City Council members representing the district where the Tree of Life synagogue massacre was carried out “unveiled” three bills being submitted to the Council, the city announced on Dec. 14. Per their press release, the new infringements will include:
- An assault weapons ban making it unlawful to man manufacture, sell, purchase, transport, carry, store, or otherwise hold in one’s possession an assault weapon within the City, such as the Colt AR-15 automatic rifle used in the Tree of Life shooting
- An accessories, ammunition and modification ban barring items such as bump stocks, armor-penetrating bullets, sawed-off rifles and large capacity magazines often used in mass shootings
- Adoption of Extreme Risk Protection Orders (ERPOs), which enable courts to temporarily prohibit a person from having guns if law enforcement or immediate family members show that the individual poses a significant danger
It’s curious that the gun-grabbers continue to attack semi-automatic firearms as “weapons of war,” knowing full well that U.S. attorneys actually argued, and the Supreme Court agreed in 1939’s Miller case, that the Second Amendment applies to weapons having a “reasonable relationship” to the effectiveness of a well-regulated militia. As for ERPO/”red flag” laws, “guilty until proven innocent” turns all principles of Constitutional justice on their heads.
But it’s hardly surprising that the gun-grabbers would once more dance in the blood of “gun-free zone” victims to stump for even more citizen disarmament. And as The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Stu Bykofsky observed, “Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue was a gun-free zone until an anti-Semite with guns turned it into a sea of death.”
by David Codrea
