Three Pennsylvania lawmakers serve on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform: Reps. Pat Meehan (PA-7), Todd Platts (PA-19), and Mike Kelly (PA-3). As the committee that has been leading the investigation into the the Obama Administration’s ATF program to knowingly sell guns to criminals who passed them directly into the hands of Mexican drug cartels, the results of their work could directly impact Pennsylvania gun stores and gun owners. Some media reports indicate that the Administration is now considering the elimination of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, and we know that they have pursued more regulations on gun shops in response to Mexican drug violence.

Here, Rep. Meehan questions the ATF staff responsible for the operation to try and get to the bottom of the program that purposefully put guns in the hands of criminals.

Rep. Meehan talked to Cam Edwards of NRA News last night to discuss his call for Attorney General Eric Holder to testify.

While Iowa talks of shifting their January 3 caucuses a month earlier and New Hampshire proposes dates as early as December 6, Pennsylvania may still be at least four months awayThe exact timing will depend on the number of challenges filed to any plans. from even having a redistricting plan to determine our legislative districts!

Here is an overview of what gun owners should know about some of the 2012 races:

Presidential Election
Unless there are radical shake-ups, the Democratic nominee will be incumbent Barack Obama. While we have been somewhat fortunate on his unwillingness to veto key legislation even when there are pro-gun amendments attached to it, his appointments to the Supreme Court reflect his true colors on this issue. The fact remains that the Second Amendment as an individual right still hangs in the balance by only one vote, and any replacement of one of the so-called “Heller Five” by this administration will likely lead to either the original case being overturned or limited so severely that there is no judicial respect for the individual right. Currently, the Republican primary is in full swing and will likely heat up here in Pennsylvania come springtime.

US Senate Race
Speculation has been strong about a Republican opponent to Sen. Bob Casey for several years. While he started out his term fairly low profile and uncontroversial, his support of controversial issues such as Obama’s healthcare plans put him on the radar with many Pennsylvanians. Now, the race is beginning to draw more attention from both sides of the aisle.

On the Democratic side, Casey only has one declared challenger so far. Brian KellyReaders are welcome to try and visit his website, kellyforussenate.com. However, when we tried to visit, warnings of serving malware popped up., who ran against former Rep. Paul Kanjorski in 2010, has announced he will launch a campaign next week.

For Republicans, the race is a little more interesting. There are at least nine candidates so far, and new announcements are not off the table. Two candidates have recent Congressional race experience – one from the Southeast and one from the Southwest. Word of Steven Welch’s campaign broke last month after his 2010 campaign for the Republican nomination the 6th congressional district was cut short when incumbent Rep. Jim Gerlach re-entered the race. A former challenger to the late Rep. John Murtha and Rep. Mark Critz, Tim Burns entered the Senate race this week.

Another former candidate also launched a campaign out of the Philadelphia suburbs – David Christian who ran for Congress in the 1980s. Erie was the site of Tom Smith’s campaign announcement. John Kensinger, a pharmacist, is running for the seat from Bedford County.

Hailing from the northern part of the state, John Vernon started his campaign in September. From Scranton, a businesswoman named Laureen Cummings has also announced a campaign for the Senate seat. Marc Scaringi, an attorney from the Harrisburg-area, also threw his hat into the ring to take on Sen. Casey.

Gun owners who pay close attention may recall that Sen. Casey had an A rating when he last ran for the seat. However, his support on a key vote for national reciprocity in 2009 was revealed to be open to gun control proponents if they felt they needed it to win a legislative battle. He also supported both of Obama’s Supreme Court nominees, including one who voted against individual rights in the McDonald case. With other pro-gun legislation moving in the current Congress, it remains to be seen what happens to the Senator’s 2012 grade.

In 2008, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty stopped by the Factoryville Sportsmen’s Club in Wyoming County to launch Sportsmen for McCain. He discussed a variety of issues important to gun owners at the time, and this video is well worth a few minutes of your time.

For more information on the woman he referenced in his speech and her incredible story, read about her here.

But what’s telling about this story is that the USDA staff have repeatedly said they are stepping up enforcement of these laws – even if it means fining families $90K for paperwork violations – and that they intend to use these kinds of cases in order to teach a lesson. And where did the Obama administration get that directive? Directly from the HSUS Change Agenda for Animals presented to the White House at the beginning of his term. Here’s the portion relevant to the Missouri case:

U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)
3) Enforcement – …increase oversight of key federal laws (…Animal Welfare Act (AWA)…); …impose strong penalties (not suspension of fines, as is so typical now); …resume issuance of press releases on enforcement actions to maximize deterrent impact…

Hunters, you better pay attention. We have outlined all of the provisions in the “Change Agenda” that go after participation in the outdoor sports and even ways that the agenda targets concealed carry holders. They won’t ban hunting directly, but they’ll use the full force of the federal government to make the lives of hunters complicated and risky of violations at every turn.

David Keene, the recently elected President of the National Rifle Association, sat down with Washington Journal to discuss the NRA’s role in elections past and present. With callers chiming in, the topics ranged from current efforts to ban magazines, which players already on the field for 2012 have records supporting the Second Amendment, and what role women play in the nation’s oldest civil rights organization.

There may be no vote a United States Senator casts that is more important than a vote to confirm a nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court. Now that the Court has clearly stated that the Second Amendment is a fundamental, individual right that applies to all law-abiding Americans, NRA members and gun owners expect a nominee to the Court to fully support, defend and preserve that freedom.

We have carefully examined the career, written documents and public statements of nominee Elena Kagan and have found nothing to indicate any support for the Second Amendment. On the contrary, the facts reveal a nominee who opposes Second Amendment rights and is clearly out of step with mainstream Americans.

Therefore, the NRA is strongly opposed to Kagan’s confirmation to the Court.

In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, she refused to declare support for the Second Amendment, saying only that the matter was “settled law.”

This was eerily similar to the scripted testimony of Justice Sonia Sotomayor last year, prior to her confirmation to the Court. When pressed on the Second Amendment then, Sotomayor also referred to the issue as “settled law.”

But in the recently decided case of McDonald v. City of Chicago, Sotomayor ignored the “settled law” of the Heller decision and signed a dissenting opinion that declared, “I can find nothing in the Second Amendment’s text, history, or underlying rationale that could warrant characterizing it as ‘fundamental’ insofar as it seeks to protect the keeping and bearing of arms for private self-defense purposes.”

It has become obvious that “settled law” is the scripted code of an anti-gun nominee’s confirmation effort. The NRA is not fooled. No member of the U.S. Senate should be either.

With no judicial record, only Kagan’s political career can be reviewed. And this provides no reason to trust her with Americans’ firearms freedom. Throughout her career, she has repeatedly demonstrated a clear hostility to the fundamental, individual right to keep and bear arms under the U.S. Constitution.

As a clerk for Justice Thurgood Marshall, Kagan said she was “not sympathetic” to a challenge to Washington, DC’s ban on firearms. As a domestic policy advisor in the Clinton White House, a colleague described her as “immersed” in Clinton’s aggressive assaults on the Second Amendment. She was involved in Clinton’s scheme to ban more than 50 types of commonly-owned semiautomatic firearms – an effort described as “…taking the law and bending it as far as we can to capture a whole new class of guns.”

As U.S. Solicitor General, Kagan chose not to file a brief last year in the landmark McDonald case, thus taking the position that incorporating the Second Amendment and applying it to the states was of no interest to the Obama Administration or the federal government.

These are not the positions of a person who supports the Second Amendment and, in fact, represent a clear and present danger to the right to keep and bear arms.

Kagan’s record clearly reveals that she does not believe that the Second Amendment guarantees a fundamental right. In her recent testimony, she refused to acknowledge respect for the God-given right of self-defense.

She should not serve on any court, let alone be confirmed to a lifetime seat on the highest court in the land.

The NRA is strongly opposed to the confirmation of Elena Kagan to the U.S. Supreme Court. This vote matters and will be a part of future candidate evaluations.

The above statement was originally published by NRA-ILA.

You can contact Senator Arlen Specter at 202-224-4254 and Senator Bob Casey at 202-224-6324.

The 2008 elections are over, and America has spoken. While many of the results were not what we hoped for, this year’s election does show how NRA members have truly changed politics in America.

Across the country, from the presidential race, to the U.S. Senate and House, to state legislative races, one thing was missing this year: ads proudly proclaiming candidates’ anti-gun credentials.

The gun control lobby must be distressed that many Democratic gains occurred only because the party has run so far from the gun control issue. While they fondly look back to how actively Bill Clinton campaigned for gun control in 1992 and 1996, they also remember the lesson that gun owners taught an anti-gun Congress in 1994, Al Gore in 2000, and John Kerry in 2004. This was a lesson taught by the National Rifle Association that has changed the politics of our issue across the country.

This year was the next step in the Democratic Party’s evolution, in which their candidate with a radical anti-gun record spent tens of millions of dollars to paint himself as a supporter of Second Amendment rights. He also spent millions recruiting phony surrogates like the American Hunters and Shooters Association, and making bogus phone calls in which Obama supporters claimed the NRA had endorsed their candidate.

Yet despite NRA members’ valiant work to cut through the spin, economic concerns were the primary factor in John McCain and Sarah Palin’s loss. Barack Obama and Joe Biden will take oaths to uphold the Constitution, but we know by their deeds and their words that they believe the Second Amendment rights of American citizens must be severely restricted.

We know the people Obama will appoint to his cabinet and to other federal offices will be almost universally anti-gun. Obama’s selection of Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff is a perfect example of the hostility the Obama White House will have for gun owners’ rights. Emanuel, now an anti-gun congressman from Illinois, was once described as the Clinton administration’s “point man on gun control.”

Below the presidential level, Republicans did not fare well. However, the Second Amendment fared far better. In fact, many of the pro-gun Republicans who lost their races were replaced by pro-gun Democrats.

That being said, we can and should expect significant challenges at both federal and state level.

While our opponents are claiming victory for their anti-gun agenda, it is a hollow claim. All across America, pro-gun candidates ran proudly on their records and their beliefs, while anti-gun candidates spent millions to hide their true positions. Now the American people will have the opportunity to judge Obama, Biden and others who lied to them about their anti-gun records. They promised to protect our rights. We will all see the truth when they fail to live up to those promises.

The threats to our rights under Barack Obama are real. If we are going to protect those rights, we have to start work now, preparing for legislative, executive and regulatory assaults at every level of government. Some will be open attacks, such as reintroduction of the Clinton gun ban. Others will be stealthier, such as unleashing the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to harass even more gun dealers and force them out of business. Regardless of how they attack our rights, we will have to respond.

Your support for NRA is going to be more important than ever. We have to be ready to hold every legislator accountable. Every elected official who ran with the support of gun owners needs to know we expect them to live up to their commitment to protect our rights. They need to hear from us often, and we cannot let them forget where we stand, or think that we are not paying close attention. And they need to know that as long as they continue to stand with us, we will continue to stand with them.

More than ever before in your life or in the life of our nation, you need to send a message to every member of the U.S. House and Senate, every federal judge, every entrenched gun-hating bureaucrat, every legislator in your home state, and every enemy of freedom.

You need to send the message that you’re standing tall with the NRA for the next four years and that, as Charlton Heston said, it is “We the People” who rule this country, not the politicians and not the media, and we will protect our cherished freedoms. Standing together, we will fight and we will prevail.

First, of our endorsed incumbents, gun owners should congratulate State Reps. Paul Clymer and Gene DiGirolamo and Attorney General Tom Corbett. Tom Corbett’s re-election is particularly noteworthy to concealed carry license holders in the our district given the control over license reciprocity for the state’s gun owners. His opponent was F-rated and could have done significant damage to our progress on the issue. (Both opponents of the endorsed state representatives refused to return questionnaires.)

However, our non-incumbent endorsed candidates did not fare as well. Both happened to be Republican, and it was not a year where the stars were lined up for Republicans at the federal level. Tom Manion was defeated by anti-gun Patrick Murphy and John McCain was defeated by the most anti-gun presidential candidate in our history. We will spend the next two years informing gun owners of Patrick Murphy’s terrible record on our issue.

In at least one race with no endorsement, we seem to have improved our representation in Harrisburg for the residents of 142. Frank Farry, who forgot to return the questionnaire to NRA but sent a personal statement to NRA members that included a pledge to create a sportsmen’s council to advise him on our issues, defeated incumbent Chris King. King’s grade had dropped from an A- to a C- during his term. (Gun owners who may have contacted King over his short term in the PA House may recognize his treatment of constituents on display last night – he refused to attend his own watch party and thank his supporters or congratulate Frank Farry.)

The only other district to change hands was 31, and that was due to the retirement of an endorsed candidate. Unfortunately, for those residents, neither Pete Stainthorpe nor Steve Santarsiero returned questionnaires earning an endorsement. In fact, Stainthorpe did not return it at all. The eventual winner, Santarsiero, was given a B rating. Now it’s up to gun owners to let him know that they would like to see that grade go higher through his votes.

Our next election in 2010 will not only give us another opportunity to return the 8th District back into a pro-gun Congressional seat, but we will also be looking at a race for the Governor’s Mansion, as well as state Senate seats in the area, and all of the state House seats again. For the next two years, my focus will be on outreach and education. In speaking with many gun owners from Quakertown to Philadelphia, I found that many simply did not realize how lower ticket candidates had voted on their rights. Next time, we will educate even more gun owners for even higher turnout.

In the meantime, check back here for reports on how our local representatives are involved in all of the big gun news from the DC Beltway back to Harrisburg.

It’s important to remember that when you listen to this clip that Obama told Pennsylvania gun owners that he simply doesn’t have the votes in Congress yet to go after their guns. However, with the risk of a filibuster-proof Congress on the way, that may not stay the case should Barack Obama win.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In the rest of the interview, he spends quite a bit of time calling for another ban on semi-automatic rifles, many of which are used at regular competitions throughout Bucks County.

He also says that the only issue he has with rationing guns to law abiding purchasers is that it’s “difficult to legislate at the federal level.” However, he does encourage states to pass laws limiting the number of guns that lawful gun owners can buy.

Sportsmen will make a huge impact in this election, and we have a special opportunity to stand out in support of John McCain and Sarah Palin at this rally. If you have not had the opportunity to hear the NRA-endorsed presidential nominee speak live, you shouldn’t miss one of these last few chances.

Joining Senator McCain will be NRA-endorsed Congressional candidate Tom Manion.

Please let me know if you plan to join us for this event. We’ll let you know of any special opportunities for sportsmen at the event. (Contact form available here.)

Perkasie Rally Details and Ticket Locations

Road to Victory Rally with John McCain

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2008
Doors Open 12 noon, Program Begins 2pm

Pennridge Regional Airport
1100 North Ridge Road
Perkasie, PA

Locations for Ticket Pickup:

Bucks Victory Office
1410 West Street Road
Warminster, PA 18974
Hours: 9-9

Bucks County GOP Headquarters
115 North Broad Street
Doylestown, PA 18901
Hours: 9-7

Montgomery Victory Office
475 Norristown Road
Blue Bell, PA 19422
Hours: 9 – 9

Lehigh Valley Victory Center
2285 Schoenersville Rd
Bethlehem, Pa 18017
Westgate Mall
Hours: 9-9

Northampton County GOP Headquarters
423 Nazareth Pike (RT 191)
Nazareth, Pa. 18064
Hours: 12-7

If you can give as little as 3 hours of your time between now and election day, we can make sure that NRA candidates are elected here.

Just fill out the volunteer form below and we’ll get in touch with you about the opportunities in your area.

cforms contact form by delicious:days

The following video is of Aaron Hobbs, the National Director of Sportsmen for McCain, speaking to a crowd that was certainly orders of magnitude larger than AHSA, which is alluded to in his speech.

Click here to view the embedded video.

My basic message is: don’t believe the media polls. Obama spent his weekend in Philadelphia while McCain was sending surrogates to the southeastern part of the state. That tells me that both McCain and Obama’s internal polling is showing the race as a dead heat, and that Obama’s polling is telling him his support in Philadelphia needs to be higher. Don’t give up — this is still winnable. Pennsylvania will be a key state in this election.

Bucks County volunteers pose in front of Pennsylvania's own Straight Talk Express.

This won’t be our last event. We’ve got a table for yet another gun show up in Allentown. We really need to bolster NRA endorsed candidates, now including John McCain. There will be no break until Barack Obama is a distant memory.

The event will feature sportsmen’s leaders from around Pennsylvania and Jim Warner, a former POW and former NRA General Counsel.

Don’t miss this huge event, a chance for sportsmen to make their voice heard in Pennsylvania and show Barack Obama that he cannot silence gun owners now matter how many threats he makes against the First Amendment and he does not have the support of real gun owners who know the truth about his record.

The rally begins at 1pm. If you would like to participate in a carpool from Bucks County, contact us ASAP.

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Claiming the ads misrepresent his new, reformed views on the Second Amendment that he seems to have suddenly adopted now that he’s on the national campaign trail, his lawyers are trying to bully broadcasters into turning away NRA ads that show what Obama has said about gun owners over the course of the last 20 years. However, all of the sources his lawyers rely on to defend his threats have been widely debunked.

Gutting the Second Amendment was clearly not enough for Senator Obama’s campaign, it looks like we may now be forced to defend the First Amendment as well if he is elected next month.

“NRA will not allow Barack Obama to revise history. That is why we will be sending this fact sheet of Obama votes to wherever hunters and gun owners congregate and to 4 million NRA members to share with their friends and neighbors.” said Chris W. Cox, NRA’s chief lobbyist. “He has supported bans on handguns and semi-automatic firearms, and he has voted to ban possession of many shotguns and rifles commonly used by hunters and sportsmen across America. And we will remind voters every single time he lies.”

In 2003 while serving in the Illinois State Legislature, Obama voted in favor of a bill in the Judiciary Committee that would have made it illegal to “knowingly manufacture, deliver or possess” a so-called “semi-automatic assault weapons.” Under this bill, a firearm did not actually have to be semi-automatic to be banned. According to definitions in the bill, all single-shot and double-barreled shotguns 28-gauge or larger, and many semi-automatic shotguns of the same size, would be banned as “assault weapons.” This definition would have banned a large percentage of the shotguns used for hunting, target shooting and self-defense in the United States. The bill also would have banned hundreds of models of rifles and handguns.

Any Illinois resident who possessed one of these commonly used guns 90 days after the effective date would have had to “destroy the weapon or device, render it permanently inoperable, relinquish it to a law enforcement agency, or remove it from the state.” Anyone who still possessed a banned gun would have been subject to a felony sentence.

“Obama may argue the bill was poorly drafted,” said Cox. “But Barack Obama – who brags about being a constitutional law professor and the former president of the Harvard Law Review – voted for it. That’s pathetic.”

Look for these new brochures at gun clubs and stores around Bucks County. If you don’t see one at your favorite gun shop, email 8thdistrict -at- pagunrights -dot-com and I will send copies to you for distribution.

The brochure supplements a new website dedicated to highlighting Sen. Obama’s record on the issues: GunBanObama.com.

He was challenged by a voter who asked him about his gun record. Here is the statement by NRA-ILA about the matter:

The latest example came at an event in the swing state of Pennsylvania. WSJ.com, reports that during a small political event at a glass factory in Duryea, Pa., Obama was asked about whether he’d ban guns if he were elected president. Predictably, he reverted to his standard, non-committal, “I don’t want to take your guns” rhetoric. “If you’ve got a gun in your house, I’m not taking it,” Obama said. But apparently he could see that there were those in the crowd who weren’t buying into his defense, and he frenetically pressed on … and on. That’s when he revealed what he really thinks.

“Even if I want to take them away, I don’t have the votes in Congress,” he said. “This can’t be the reason not to vote for me. Can everyone hear me in the back? I see a couple of sportsmen back there.”

The next question Pennsylvania voters should ask is, “What happens when you do have the votes?”

While he was there, the Gov. Pawlenty spoke with residents about the issues, watched junior shooters compete in a round of trap, and visited with them after they finished up.

Gov. Pawlenty used the presence of younger shooters to remind those in attendance that passing our sporting traditions to the next generation must be a priority. His experiences in Minnesota have given him a greater understanding of the importance of these traditions.

Tim Pawlenty & Chris Hackett pose with junior shooters.

Here is a video of Gov. Pawlenty’s remarks about why he believes gun owners and sportsmen must weigh their vote in the 2008 presidential election carefully.

Click here to view the embedded video.

A search of Senator Barack Obama’s website indicates he has no sportsmen’s coalition, or at least none that the campaign is willing to list with all of the other coalition groups on the front page.

I am a lifetime member of the NRA, I support our Constitutional right to bear arms and am a proponent of gun safety programs for Alaska’s youth.

In addition to her support of gun rights, Palin has been a leader for hunters and anglers in Alaska.

I grew up hunting and fishing in Alaska, and I am proud to raise my children with this same uniquely Alaskan heritage. From a statewide perspective, personal use of fish and game is an integral part of our Alaskan culture and feeds our spirit as well as our families, whether we are fishing for personal use on the Kenai, hunting for moose on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, or fishing for kings at Scandinavian Beach in Dillingham. …

As a lifelong Alaskan who grew up hunting and fishing, I recognize the importance of proper wildlife management to ensure that our fish and wildlife thrive.

This stands in stark contrast to Delaware Senator Joe Biden who wrote and continues to support gun bans that could impact law abiding gun owners like Governor Palin and many of her fellow Alaskans.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation’s Steve Sanetti said, “Politically engaged sportsmen see John McCain as a supporter of their concerns. To sportsmen, I would say, don’t be fooled. Make it a point to know where the candidates you’re considering for office truly stand on hunting and firearms issues.”

Certainly, Senator McCain appears he would make a better partner out in the field, as proven with his interview with Outdoor Life.

With upwards of 80% of sportsmen considered likely voters in the fall, these issues can make a difference. NSSF estimates there are 40 million sportsmen of voting age in the country.