The Firearms Policy Coalition, along with a trio of private citizens, is suing Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, which includes the city of Pittsburgh, for shutting down their firearms division, which processes concealed carry permit applications, in response to COVID-19.
A gun rights group and three individuals have sued the Allegheny County sheriff, the county, and the state commissioner over the shutdown of the county’s firearms division and the state’s ban on transporting loaded guns on public roads or spaces during the COVID-19 crisis.
It looks like FPC moved fast on this one considering only about a week has passed since Allegheny County Sheriff William Mullen shut down the firearms division. (Yes, he shut it down, blaming COVID-19, nine months into the pandemic.)
We’ll see how the lawsuit progresses. It isn’t the first time a county, city, or state has tried to take advantage of the COVID-19 crisis to deny citizens their Second Amendment rights.
From the FPC’s press release announcing the suit:
“The Commonwealth’s criminal laws, and the shutdown of the Allegheny County Sheriff’s Firearms Division, among other laws, policies, and practices we challenge in this case, make it impossible for our clients to lawfully carry firearms in public, in violation of their fundamental right to bear arms,” said FPC’s Adam Kraut. “Allegheny County residents who do not have a license to carry firearms are now being completely denied their rights on pain of severe criminal penalties. We look forward to vindicating the rights of our clients and all who wish to carry firearms in public for self-defense.”
“As the Supreme Court just days ago made clear, governments may not ignore the Constitution and prevent people from exercising their rights even during a pandemic,” said FPC President Brandon Combs. “The defendants’ unconstitutional laws and policies have made it impossible for law-abiding people to exercise their right to bear arms. That is a policy choice that the Constitution takes off the table. Through this case, other FPC lawsuits, and many more cases that will be filed very soon, FPC will continue fighting forward and work to restore the People’s right to keep and bear arms across the United States.”
What do you think of the attempts that have been and are being made under “emergency powers” to severely delay or entirely deny the right to bear arms during the COVID-19 era?
Totally ridiculous shit !
Was TTAG updated to a new format within the past couple of hours since I last visited? The new splash page layout will take a bit of getting used to (not too fond of it), but I can understand the logic. The fonts are all wonky and hard on the eyes, though. Some sections of text are small and black; others are way too large and in an off-color that doesn’t seem to match. Methinks there is a bit of tweaking and fine tuning needed.
Overall, it’s a big change from the classic layout and I’m not particularly a fan, but the shock can be eased if the incongruency of the fontsets is addressed.
Not a fan of the new layout.
Well someone went and Effed up a perfectly good website.
The new layout is, sadly, flaming trash.
Have to agree on the Font…I give the rest time to sink in.
I can deal with the layout inside the articles, it’s not much different than the original. But the homepage layout is TERRIBLE.
Shite lay out. This along with the crappy editing….good grief.
The entire concept of “emergency powers” is a crock. If you have to wait for government authority to solve it, it can’t be solved at all. This includes natural disasters; more than half of the emergency relief in Hurricane Harvey was private, and they were on scene nearly 48 hours before FEMA was. This includes foreign invasion; by the DoD’s own admission a foreign power such as China or Russia invading the western seaboard would mean those three states would be occupied for weeks, if they can retake them at all (that is, without resorting to indefinite siege.) And as we’ve seen, this extends to pandemics; at best everything government of all levels has done this year has been reactionary and either too late to be effective or inherently ineffective (e.g. limiting international travel only after the provervial horse was already out of the barn, and shutting down every small business in the country long after preventing further outbreaks was impossible, respectively — and all because the CDC parroted the WHO when they conveyed China’s lies that human to human transmission couldn’t happen.)
Civil unrest is a different story. But not a better one. Government activity in civil unrest seems to be mainly focused on ensuring citizens not involved remain vulnerable to attackers, e.g. cordoning off riot areas with uninvolved persons inside, or confiscating firearms door to door after the looting started in post-Katrina New Orleans.
“Emergency powers” means “powers grabbed as a result of an emergency,” not “powers that can help deal with an emergency.” Because clearly they can’t.
Ahem. Russia has neither the manpower nor the navy necessary to invade the west coast. China has both, but one carrier is not enough to protect that fleet from the sustained aerial assault that would begin as soon as that fleet entered our exclusive economic zone. There is more than enough firepower, on, under, and above the sea on the west coast to eradicate any such menace. In fact, it would not even be necessary to eliminate surface combatants, only the troop ships, to halt the invasion.
I’m just telling you what the pentagon itself concluded with the RAND wargames. We would flat out lose a war with China or Russia over Taiwan or the Baltic, and an invasion of the west coast by either would be an unmitigated disaster for their armed forces, but would also put California, Washington and Oregon under complete occupation for weeks to months. If you want to doubt that result feel free, but at that point you’re armchair general-ing against real generals.
Even our professional generals are still mostly armchair generals, so I think most of us are reasonably qualified to give this a shot.
Do you have a link to this RAND study?
I’m daily well versed in this sort of thing and I’ve got to agree with Mark. China and Russia even combined don’t have global power projection ability to invade the United States. Even if they were willing to take millions of loses. The US navy and air force absolutely dwarfs them in size and capability. Raw numbers don’t accurately show the real picture. It doesn’t matter how many millions of troops they have, they can’t move them very far from their regions. They just don’t have the logistical ability. Fighting in their backyard on the other hand is a different story.
In a regional conflict, like the baltics or Taiwan, they do have the capability to put some serious hurt on US forces like we haven’t faced since WW2. This is due to their continental missiles, the strategic depth of their nations, their regional Air Force abilities, ability to mass very large forces, and very good air defense networks. Especially if they both launch simultaneous attacks.
China would be a blockade war. Stop the ships. Most of their neighbors aren’t very friendly to the PRC either.
If you try to invade, you play on the PLA’s strengths of manpower and artillery. A war with China in that region would be a long conflict of attrition.
“China would be a blockade war. Stop the ships. Most of their neighbors aren’t very friendly to the PRC either.”
What do you think China’s ‘Belt and Road’ initiative is all about? The ‘Belt’ are the sea lanes, and the ‘Road’ are rail and highways to eastern Europe…
The whole purpose of Allegheny County Firearms Division is to deny people their 2A rights. Mission accomplished.
Yup. Same story, different day, and a highly convenient excuse to justify the snub of the 2A.
Wow a government entity that actually fulfills their mission statement??.
“Wow a government entity that actually fulfills their mission statement??.”
The IRS, obviously… 😉
Pittsburgh has been taken over by liberal swill who have become quite predictable in their actions…and the governor and state supreme court aren’t far behind….
Don’t even get me started on the PA supreme court. I spent a lot of my weekends in 2017 outside gun shows handing out fliers about the candidates for the PA supreme court. I got a lot of “I belong to the NRA, they’ll take care of it!” and a lot of “We voted Trump in. He’ll protect our rights!” These people just couldn’t grasp that the NRA is MIA and Trump has nothing to do with the PA supreme court.
I spent countless hours trying to get gun shops to take fliers and hand them out with every purchase, or even just let me leave a stack for people to take on their own. More of the same.
We lost the PA supreme court in November 2017 because gun owners couldn’t be bothered to take some responsibility for their own situation. We could have had a conservative PA supreme court, but now we are stuck with a liberal one for the foreseeable future.
The first step to counter Fuddism is to undo the cranial-rectal inversion.
Being a Sheriff, you’d think he’d know better.
Sheriff’s are supposed to UPHOLD the Constitution,
although I know there are at least 6 more Sheriffs that are like this traitor. I’m not positive, but I think that Sheriff’s are elected officials. If that’ll the case then you got to remember , this is what the voter wanted…
Shame, Shame, Shame…
Obviously the FPC doesn’t appreciate how dangerous CoV-2 is.
FFS here people, the 2A, and all your other rights don’t matter if you’re dead and the scientific consensus is that CoV-2 already kills 3,265,654% of people who get it. Add in Climate Change making the disease 127,665% more dangerous by April and we’re all dead 126.377 years ago!
“And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.”
You need to stop playing with that oujia board. You’re channeling Greta and AOC at the same time.
I’m so sad that classical education has been outlawed by the Republican party.
Otherwise, you would’ve recognized a bit of wisdom from Edgar Allan Poe regarding the hubris of humans.
Not wearing masks and not “social distancing” can increase the spread to 90% probability. Wearing masks and social distancing can reduce the spread to near 0%. Because COVID19 symptoms don’t show for weeks, there is a chance to infect dozens, if not hundreds, in that time.
I’ll admit to not wearing masks but I do keep my distance and travel on public transport out of peak times. Also I avoid crowded places and shop at less popular times. Worked well enough over the last 10 months.
Carry anyway! If you’re stopped tell the po-leece yer protesting white raciss crackers. Or something more idiotic😏
Another Fucking change to the website! Thanks but no. This sucks like the last time. Change it back.
I am unable to discern chronological order of articles in this new website format. Ugh.
Yeah, no sense of order…
Same here. I can get used to a new look if (1) the fonts are properly displayed instead of being wonky, and (2) the splash page makes more sense.
I think there can be a happy medium between the classic and this new format to arrive at an updated look if Dan wants to polish up the site, but this ain’t it.
What the FUCK just happened to the TTAG web code?
Nothing happened to this website’s web coding. Neither foreign nations (cough China cough, cough) nor Democrat party hackers attacked The Truth about Guns website. We know this because this website is the most secured website ever.
/sarcasm
LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL…😢😞😕
Pittsburgh, like Philly, is a city out of touch with most of Pennsylvania. The 5 counties around Philly and the 3 around PBurgh are flipping the State purple through numbers. Guns aren’t the only things they are after, illegal immigration and breaking the oil/gas industry is on the list too.
It will resemble new York in a few years
The Counties outside of Pittsburgh are turning Red. The Only County in PA outside of Philadelphia turning Blue is Chester County.
Bucks, Delaware, and Montgomery gave been Blue since 1992 while Berks has gotten more Red.
You mean that loaded gun I carry all day everyday is agin the law? Whoops.
Go back to the old format I agree with people up here ☝️This sucks.
I couldn’t figure out what happened,
Why do people want to change things that aren’t broken, leave shit alone,
Just like my old lady , changes shit just to get under my skin…
If Rudolph comes down with Covid Christmas Eve, Santa could just hitch up Sheriff Bill to lead the sleigh with that nose. Methinks he likes more than a little taste, he may have the”disease”.
Glocktalk also just changed to a “new” format … and I won’t be going back
Cant say I’m surprised the mayor of Pittsburgh tried that BS MSR ban. I’m a proud Pennsylvanian but I would like to see Pittsburgh and Philadelphia removed from the state.
Oh good.
An unnecessarily busy and convoluted to navigate site redesign.
If you can’t keep them on your page with quality posts trap them there with a maze of noise.
Funny thing about that strategy. Quality posts will bring them back. The noise will make sure they never come back.
Dan,
I don’t like the new look of the site. It was just fine as it was.
Jim
Yeah, it’s a big change. We’re working on it and tweaking it to improve a number of things. We only ask that you give it a chance. I hope it will grow on you (and not like a fungus).
Thanks,
DZ
Sorry – more like a fungus! I vote for a return to the old format; this chicken shit is a muddled mess!
This suit should be pushed as hard and for as long as might be necessary.
The old man always said “Carry a gun if you think you need it.” He lived before there were permits. He always carried.
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