SMOKING GUN
IT MUST BE a dang hoot to live in the middle of the state, or at least in the parts that don't include Philadelphia. You get to tote a gun, smoke your brains out and regularly flip the bird at the city folk in Philly.
IT MUST BE a dang hoot to live in the middle of the state, or at least in the parts that don't include Philadelphia. You get to tote a gun, smoke your brains out and regularly flip the bird at the city folk in Philly.
It's no wonder those 16823 folks (the ZIP code, not the population, of Centre County - but we also mean the entire swath of rural Pa.) are so successful at defending their way of life. Consider two actions in Harrisburg this week: the non-action of the House in moving a gun bill that would have required owners to report a gun lost or stolen, and a "clean air act" that was nothing of the kind.
The Senate's clean-indoor-air bill is a lite version of a statewide smoking ban that would actually allow smoking in some day-care centers (nice!), as well as in fraternal lodges and veterans halls, and pre-empt the painfully achieved smoking ban in Philadlephia and allow smoking in casinos.
In the case of guns, the House Judiciary Committee pulled a bill mandating the reporting of a lost or stolen gun to the police. This would have helped stem the tide of illegal guns into the streets - 85 percent of guns retrieved in crimes were "lost" or "stolen," often bought, then resold, by straw purchasers.*
