Since this is being filed from the State Senate side of things, I'm not sure what the angle is here ? Unless it's just posturing. It should not make it out of Committee if the process is the same as in the State House.

I Assumed it would kick off in the State House since the Democrats now control that side of things and the appropriate Committee that the Bill has to make it through. Either way, I'm keeping an eye on this crap.

I checked for more info to see whom the usual suspects are filing this and exactly was being filed. No big surprise here.

https://www.abc27.com/pennsylvania-politics/pennsylvania-lawmakers-proposed-assault-weapons-ban/


Here is memo of intent to file:

https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/Legis/CSM/showMemoPublic.cfm?chamber=S&SPick=20230&cosponId=40223

Here is what will be filed. It is a rehash of SB1300. Here is a link to that Bill.

https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/billinfo/BillInfo.cfm?syear=2021&sind=0&body=S&type=B&bn=1300

This is bad.

PA has quite a few squishy republicans. And after the redistricting they may have gotten even squishier.

@wcsv

I hope this shit doesn't pass. I just left a shithole with this crap.

Did you not wipe your feet at the door? Look at the shit you tracked in!

Agreed, this one is particularly bad; it rolls in basically everything in one. my reading is it's registration with the requirement to re-register (with associated fee per weapon of course) every five years. Looks like it includes pretty much every semi-auto rifle and pistol as well. It also appears to ban any new ownership of semi-autos (only ones owned before enactment can be registered), and also slips secure storage requirements and parts bans in.

We're going to have to work really hard to keep bad stuff from passing this session. The Ds are super emboldened with their redistricting success. Hound your State Senators and State Reps.

ETA: I do not believe that SB1300 made it out of committee in the State Senate last year, so hopefully that holds this year as well. Would not hurt to contact your senator, as well as Senator Lisa Baker (Chair of Judiciary Committee).

This one still has me scratching my head. I wonder if they are testing the waters in the Senate to see where this goes ? They do this every January, but, this year was delayed because of Speaker of the House bullcrap antics. So here we are dealing with this in March.

I assumed this would have kicked off in the State House first since IF the Bill makes it out of Committee and is voted on there, it only needs a simple majority to pass through the House. That may be simplifying things, considering the time that has to be spent caucusing & 3 day discussion and voting process that can take quite awhile for a Bill to go to the House and either get voted on or Die, which I think this would be a situation where that could very well happen.  

But the question remains, are squishy Republicans outnumbered by the very few Pro-Gun Democrats in the State House ? I have no idea what is going on in the State Senate.

I think both houses only require a simple majority (26 in the Senate, 102 in the house).
I would assume that a variety of bills are going to originate in both houses, just depending on who "owns" that particular bill. Senator Santarsiero introduced this bill last June, and it seems like he REALLY wants to push it through. It did not make it through committee last time, but he is the minority chair on the Senate Judiciary and maybe he knows something we don't.

ETA: I would hope something as extreme as this bill would peel off a few Dem votes in the house. Hopefully it dies in Senate Judiciary committee (again) and we never find out

Apparently the annual 2A rally in harrisburg is now being managed by Rep Abby Major and Senator Cris Dush. I'm looking for more info but it's supposed to be happening June 12th at 10AM on the Capitol steps. Will update with more info when i find it.

ETA: a little info https://foac-illea.org/Events/64

We got hit hard by an extremely slanted redistricting after 2020. That combined with mail-in voting threw us from a comfortable majority in the house (with some very pro-2A committee chairs) to being down by 1 seat. The makeup of the Senate didn't change much.

The bad news is the Dems are licking their chops hoping the Senate republicans are too squishy to stand up to a gun control onslaught (and they might be right).

The good news is no gun control passed the PA Senate last session with basically the same makeup - so there is hope they can be prodded to hold their ground. The Dems also hold only a single seat majority in the house. They've set the rules to give themselves an inordinate majority on the committees, but on a floor vote they will have to keep every single Dem voting the party line - not impossible but hopefully hard enough.

Our biggest challenge will be reversing course in the next election. We simply can't afford to lose any more seats in either chamber.

Two decent state level gun rights groups to get involved with are GOA-Pennsylvania and FOAC:
https://pennsylvania.gunowners.org/
https://foac-illea.org/

Dems are holding a public hearing tomorrow to kick off their push: https://pennsylvania.gunowners.org/pa03222023/