Guns-plank

==Gun Planks==
* Hunters in Pennsylvania should not need to provide their Social Security number to obtain a hunting license.
* We should guard the inalienable right to keep and bear arms for all law-abiding citizens.
:The Pennsylvania Constitution says that the rights of citizens to keep and bear arms should not be questioned. We should take that seriously.
* Gun prohibition doesn't work and compounds problems. Liberty, education and personal responsibility in gun ownership works.
* I'm in favor of the continued push for implementation of an armed pilots program. 
* My desire for a high margin for litigation, dictates I'd never be party to a lawsuit or a bill that attacks the firearms industry.
* Taser stun guns have a role within police departments.
* The act of obtaining a hunting licenses should not require a Social Security number.
::News story Judge rules that PA can’t require social security numbers from gun purchasers
* It's lunacy to pass a new law to deter people who break the laws that are already on the books.
* I want a cure for the killing in our streets. Ohters might want a political fix.
* Libertarians want to help Americans defend themselves. The old party politicians coddle criminals and refuse to enforce existing gun laws.
* Liberals show more compassion for criminals who break gun laws than for law-abiding citizens who need protections. To stop the killing, lock up criminals, not guns.
* I care about the safety of law-abiding Americans, and that's why we defend right to protect ourselves. 
* A gun is a poor person's first line of defense. 
* I care about our children's safety and that's why I want to enforce existing gun laws to lock up criminals who break them.
* Gun prohibition is a superficial solution to the problem, and therefore can only have limited benefits (regardless of the costs associated with prohibition). Real solutions address the source of violent motivations, from the illegal drug market, to a lack of opportunity, to frustration and hopelessness, whether caused by material conditions or mental problems.
* Opponents of gun prohibition should also oppose drug prohibition. Drug prohibition is a source of violent motivations. Drug prohibition does not eliminate drug use. Drug prohibition helps develop the tools of prohibition.
* I will never permit an illegal confiscations of legally owned firearms, in the wake of any natural or man-made disaster.
* I will work to make an educational effort to train police, miliarty, and other workers on the public payrolls about the need to understand and defend the constitution, even in the wake of a disaster. We should hold training exercises among police forces, citizens and other "authorities" to give clear policies that are understood.
:These educational sessions should empower citizens and whistleblowers the capaicty to file with judges cases that would seek them the ability to issued restraining orders to bar further gun confiscations from peaceable and law-abiding citizens.
* The NRA is going state-by-state to change every state law that has some type of emergency powers statute that allows authorities to regulate or confiscate guns from law-abiding citizens when an emergency is declared. I will support those efforts.
==Links==
* Guns
== Gun Group Endorsement Chatter ==
Firearms Owners Against Crime (FOAC) publishes endorsements of candidates each November. They are a single issue group with that issue being gun-rights. 
Question: What is your position on gun-rights?
I'm very much a pro-gun advocate / candidate. But, I don't own a gun
collection nor do I hunt. A prior opponent for the race in 2005 for PA Senat, Michael Diven, new-R, does hunt and have guns. Herb O was behind Diven.
FOAC folks didn't really want to engage with me.
I don't hunt. I swim. I don't collect guns -- I collect books. So, I'm
not a die-hard on this. I'm not a veteran either. Jack Wagner is a veteran. Nor am
I a bounty hunter / son of a cop (Diven's dad was in the police
force). But would love to host a lazer storm game party or a
paint-ball fund-raiser if someone wants to do that for / with me. 
So, I'm going to be luke warm on these matters. And, without the big
bucks behind me -- they are going to steer clear, I dare predict.
====
* THE Gun Story of 2005 comes with hurricaine Katrina and what is quite possibly the greatest oversight of constitional rape our country has ever witnessed. The New Orleans Gun Grab Saga should make our heads spin.
:In September, 2005, somebody gave law enforcement officers orders to confiscate legally owned firearms from New Orleans homeowners. Homeowners who had broken no laws, threatened no person, and who desperately needed those guns for self defense were the target of this confiscation edict. 
:When ordered to seize weapons, many officers did not question the legality of the order. Instead, they carried it out. Armed peace officers, "storm troopers," entered homes, forced citizens to the floor, seized their only means of protection, and then loaded those defenseless citizens in military trucks for processing and shipment elsewhere. 
:Armed law enforcement officials will act on illegal orders if the order is given a cloak of authority. Citizens can no longer trust law enforcement to abide by the US Constitution over an illegal edict.
::
:* Edwin Compass, disgraced NOLA police chief, now resigned, said, "Only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons." 
:* Second in command, Warren Riley, who now commands the NOLA police force as an interim commissioner, said, "No one will be able to be armed. We are going to take all the weapons." 
category: Platform_Planks_from_Mark_Rauterkus