Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
The lead up to this 2022 election has taken a great many wild swings that this author hasn’t seen for the better part of 40 years. I don’t know how the average citizen could keep up! Evaluating the comments and the claims made by not only the candidates and incumbents but also by the Republican and Democrat parties has proven to be a challenge for all but the most interested and experienced outside observer. Having watched the statements and the machinations play out over the course of the year I have to say that the red wave has fizzled out and become a red whimper, if that.
There are a lot of opinions and assignations over what happened and who is responsible for the various twists and turns in this election but I can tell you definitely that in addition to the election outcome that there is a clandestine movement afoot to cement Republican leadership in Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell that is being opposed, or at least challenged, by both senators and representatives alike. Not the least of which, is the fact that the drama and manipulation and machinations behind-the-scenes is rife with speculation and drama unto itself.
In a most outrageous development, and with counting going on in the various states still, a charge of restraint is being heard from Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida who is seeking to delay the vote on leadership until the control over the House and the Senate is finalized. “The Senate GOP leadership vote next week should be postponed,” Rubio tweeted. “First we need to make sure that those who want to lead us are genuinely committed to fighting for the priorities & values of the working Americans (of every background) who gave us big wins in states like Florida.”
He was enthusiastically supported in this quest by Sen. Josh Hawley. Who said, ‘Well, the other side sucks, and Biden sucks.’ Well, no doubt! But 
it’s pretty hard to convince folks, particularly independent-minded ones who don’t tend to trust the process much, to vote for you, if you don’t have something affirmative to say and offer,” in an interview with RealClearPolitics.
The Republican Party used their huge polling advantage and the favorable winds granted by the unspeakably incompetent Biden administration to target their own losses in a manner that will ensure the embarrassment of Trump and ascendancy of DeSantis, all in one fell swoop. This week, the Republican establishment will likely be dangling a few vivid alternatives in front of Trump as he retires to Mar-a-Largo before his scheduled announcement. His choices will be presented in the starkest of terms.
I have taken the liberty of including just a tiny fraction of the articles that have been written about the elections this week:
Take for example, this little nugget from Real Clear Politics (11/10/22):
Hemingway: Republican Leadership's Inability to Create a Red Wave an Indictment on How They're Running Things
Take for example, this little tidbit from Real Clear Politics (11/9/22)
Fetterman Victory Speech: “We Jammed Them Up,” That’s Why I’ll Be the Next U.S. Senator
Take for example the Federalist’s ‘Mollie Hemingway’ gem below (11/4/22);
Republicans Spent 40 Years on the Sidelines
The above is but a pittance of the articles that have been written regarding the elections in America! Rather than take up your time with links that seem important to me or us I’m going to put a host of links to other like-minded organizations that will give you a well-rounded picture of developments within this nation.
In case you didn’t guess it, all of the above (NOT exclusively) are considered to be conservative and alternate right sites. These are not considered to be sites that are part of the establishment. All of them have subscription mechanisms by which you can add your name and e-mail to the list so you can take advantage of the right and the left.
Deals are made all the time in this game (Blood Sport), and this election has no other explanation that makes sense. "Interesting times" (a Chinese Curse) is the understatement of the year, and we likely could be in for a pretty interesting couple of months.
The fact of the matter is that our nation and our freedom and our Constitution matter a great deal to me, especially with Veterans Day being yesterday! As a 68-year-old Marine who leads an organization that is heavily populated by fellow veterans and law enforcement I can honestly tell you that it is disturbing in the extreme for all of us to see the developments in our country! I encourage you to step up your game and become more involved!
As you know, but the media won’t tell you, there are numerous Federal and state laws that bar most individuals from carrying firearms or other weapons in certain locations. For instance, federal laws prohibit the possession of firearms in federal facilities, other than federal court facilities, except for hunting or other lawful purposes (18 U.S.C. 930). Similarly, firearms are prohibited on property belonging to the U.S. Depar
tment of Veterans Affairs (38 C.F.R. 1.218) or the U.S. Postal Service (39 C.F.R. 232.1).
Two, additional, federal laws restrict guns in or around schools offering elementary or secondary education. The Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990 prohibits most firearms within 1,000 feet of a school, but it does not apply to possession by individuals with state licenses (18 U.S.C. 922). In addition, the Gun-Free Schools Act of 1994 applies to schools receiving federal funds and requires the schools to expel for at least one year any student found in possession of a firearm on school property (20 U.S.C. 7961).
Debate:
There is an active debate within the academic community over the extent to which perpetrators are attracted to Gun-Free Zones (GFZ). The anti-gun analysis (one to which we do not adhere) breaks down into 133 mass shooting events between 2009 and 2016 found that 10 percent of incidents occurred in designated gun-free zones (Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, 2017b). A competing academic analysis focused on mass public shootings between 1998 and 2018 and reported that 97.8 percent of incidents took place in gun-free zones (Crime Prevention Research Center, 2018a). There is growing controversy over these discrepancies in these estimates, even breaking down into what the definition of mass shootings are, and even how Gun Free Zones are classified.
I have to admit that I always chuckled at the Gun Free Zone signs. They seemed so stupid. There is no surprise that the sick people that plan a mass shooting would pick a gun free zone where there is no risk of getting shot themselves until they are ready. Seriously why would a criminal who planned on breaking the law by committing mass murder honor a law summed up in a sign saying gun free zone? Where is the common sense here?
It is amazing how anti-gun organizations distort the truth to prove their unfounded points. It is another example of progressive government and their henchmen organizations attempting to force us onto their agenda, especially when it is wrong.
Philosophy:
The letter to the editor taken from a Pennsylvania newspaper illustrates the lunacy and silliness of expecting a Gun Free Zone to protect you:
Letters to the Editor from Pennsylvania
Our legislators have it all backwards.
First of all, their legislation does nothing to take guns away from the bad guys.. only limits ownership of, and the ability for, good American citizens to protect themselves and their families. If you wanted to hold up a bar, would you make the attempt at a bar known to be frequented by off duty and retired police? Of course not -- because if you pulled a weapon you would be looking down at least 20 gun barrels. The resulting scene would be mindful of a “Seinfeld” comedy. But it’s not really funny.
Criminals operate where there would be no resistance because they are basically cowards. There’s a story about why the Japanese never attacked the U.S. mainland. They knew that all Americans had weapons and it would end up in a blood bath if they did, so all they did was launch fire balloons, which landed harmless on the West Coast and caused just one casualty for all their effort.
Restricting weapons in areas where mass shootings have occurred in the past is just backwards. Knowledge that people could carry anywhere is the one reason that there would be a real drop in violence and gun shootings.
And why would you tax people in poor neighborhoods via high fees for carry permits and insurance costs, which prevent legal carry by the very people living in now high crime areas. Just renaming concealed carry as something else doesn’t change anything.
Stephen Brickman
In the Final Analysis, Gun Free Zones are a manifestation of the gun-control movement as a whole and the sweeping realization of exactly what the court did is causing frenzy and consternation for anti-gunners throughout America. One wonders just exactly what it’s going to take to make people put down the pixie dust and realize just exactly who is responsible for individual safety in this nation, especially after the most recent decision in the United States Supreme Court-Bruen.
We have been around a long time, going back into the early 80s, and can remember a time where the public debate around school shootings generated the Gun Free School Zones legislation that has been so poorly enforced that it is virtually useless, as a crime-fighting tool. As a matter of fact, this lack of enforcement (accountability) has led to ‘MORE’ school shootings and not less!
In 2018, CNN had a Townhall that featured “Never Again Founders and other survivors of the Stoneman Douglas shooting”. They squared off against NRA spokespersons, Florida law enforcement, and politicians on both sides of the issue. During this Townhall, tensions flared when parents like Fred Guttenberg confronted Sen. Marco Rubio by saying “my 14-year-old daughter… Was shot in the back… What an assault weapon, the weapon of choice… although, as we all know, assault weapons are not the weapon of choice nor are they weapons of war, the adherents of this concept are single-mindedly focused on driving gun control as an answer, no matter the consequences to our rights nor the future for our kids, be it long-term or short-term.
All in all, CNN's town hall showcased gut-wrenching emotional anguish felt by victims' family, friends, teachers, etc. that likely moved many to tears. But do tears alone belong in America's gun control debate?
Not once in two hours was the number of mass shootings (133 in 39 years, 3.5/yr) or students killed (1K, 28/yr) or injured (2.6K, 68/yr) relative to the number of children in America, 0.004%, mentioned. Nor were the odds of being shot in a mass shooting (1 in 11K), 1,571 times less than dying from cancer (1 in 7), presented. No one stated how often so-called "assault rifles" (10% of the time) are used or how many shootings are stopped by armed civilians (49% in 2021). Nor were gun-free zones, Israeli policy, or the effects of drug use and nihilistic ideologies (that deny God's existence) on the mental state of shooters discussed. Also missing from the public debate was any mention of the mercenary attitudes of the media to milk the public to benefit the bottom line. Perhaps most remarkably, no one mentioned that all public policy is legally constrained by the U.S. Constitution.
The derision of the people on stage as well as the ones in the audience for the constitutional rights as embodied in the Bill of Rights appeared to know no bounds. As a matter of fact, in general politicians added insult to injury by vowing to further infringe upon yet more rights without deference to the tragedies that have followed National firearms bans. At no point was the tenuous balance between our freedoms and students that would be gunned down by an evil and murderous deranged person is a horror beyond words, what does one say about the governments who over the years have grown evil and even more deranged and slaughtering millions?
The founders understood a simple law of nature: imbalances in power invite exploitation. From this vantage point, whether victim and criminal or militia and government, parity is required to avoid violence. Firearm bans create disparity, emboldening criminal exploitation. That's why nations without guns like the U.K., Sweden, and Germany have more total crime than the U.S.
Ask yourself this: if America with guns has less total crime than nations without guns, then how are guns the cause for violence? So, when students at #NeverAgain rallies hold signs that read, "Protect students not guns," they unwisely pit themselves not against guns, but against victims and the cornerstone tenet of this nation: freedom.
Basically, the CNN Townhall was an emotional plea that was designed to create fear in the hearts of students and concerned parents so that they willingly challenge freedom so essential that the founding fathers declared a free nation impossible without it.
Pennsylvania:
The Prohibited Offensive Weapons statute, Title 18 Section 908, has long been a target (pun intended) for FOAC. As of January 2, 2023 the possession of spring assisted knives/automatic knives will be legal once more in Pennsylvania. Ending a tradition of bias and prejudice going back to the 50s is neither easy nor simple, constitutional considerations aside.
HB 1929, supported by Knife Rights and FOAC, was overwhelmingly passed by Gov. Wolf in a remarkably easy (painless) development, considering how much the Democrats have fought us over the years going back until the early 2000’s.
While a lot of work remains to be done on knife preemption, and local communities can still ban knives at will, we encourage all sportsmen and outdoors enthusiasts to click on the links above and to become familiar with the local communities guidelines and local ordinances so we can argue the merits of, or lack thereof, the individual ordinances.
Federal:
Federal Judge Rules Against New York Carry Law-Unconstitutional
This past Monday, November 7th, Federal Judge Glenn Suddaby, in a lengthy 184-page ruling, issued a preliminary injunction, that was in part based on the Bruen decision, that was against new New York law that was offered up by the Gov. and the legislature. This new law was unconstitutional from its beginning and it was in response to the overturning of the 1911 Sullivan act along with associated other anti-gun laws.
Judge Suddaby stated that “[A]lthough the Court in no way suggests that America lacks a historical tradition of firearm-licensing schemes, it finds (based on the current briefing of the parties) that America lacks a historical tradition of firearm-licensing schemes conferring open-ended discretion on licensing officers”!
The judge further ruled that the state’s attempt to prohibit gun carry on all private property unless explicitly allowed by the owner, including private businesses open to the public, by default was unconstitutional.
Suddaby is also often unsubtle in his critique of the attempts to identify historical analogues the state did make.
“For the sake of brevity, the Court will not expound on why it finds that barring some people from openly carrying rifles on other people’s farms and lands in 19th century America is hardly analogous to barring all license holders from carrying concealed handguns in virtually every commercial building now,” he wrote. “Even if the way the historical and modern regulations burdened one’s Second Amendment right were the same, the State Defendants’ attempt to analogize these six laws to Section 5 of the CCIA would stumble over the second of the Supreme Court’s two ‘central’ metrics: ‘why the regulations burden a law-abiding citizen’s right to armed self defense.'”
The judge’s directness was clearly on display in regard to his criticisms of the New York law wherein he said that it was “unreasonably disproportionate to the burdensomeness of [their] historical analogues” and that it is filled with “unprecedented constitutional violations.”
Judicial Watch: https://www.judicialwatch.org/dhs-slammed-for-failing-to-counter-terrorism/
Talks
Op-eds
Television/Podcasts
Radio interviews/Podcasts
Media and Other Coverage
Television Show Bias on Guns
Recent C-SPAN Appearances
Other
The agency is facing serious management and performance challenges as a result of an audit that blames much of its flaws on a mismanaged and barely adequate response to the counterterrorism challenges and the border security.
The audit did not exempt DHS from technology challenges either, much of it was exposed as part of its routine border duties. Perhaps the most glaring technology challenge is in regard to the cybersecurity effort that has been exposed on the border. Investigators do not exempt any of the areas that are under DHS control and that includes FEMA, which is also under the control of DHS. I would add that FEMA is that agency that was created under the Jimmy Carter Executive Order of 1979 and that this agency is considered to be a corrupt model with 20,000+ employees.
It goes without mentioning that the Department of Justice created a COVID 19 fraud enforcement task force and that fraud and corruption was so rampant that it paid particular mention to the many ways this agency promoted pandemic related fraud.
DHS is not immune from criticism including by its own auditors, which has seen that the response was fast and furious in a lengthy letter accusing its own watchdog of being “misleading, inaccurate, contextually incomplete and confusing.”
In a masterful stroke, soft-on-crime Democrats were turning the tables on Republicans in the past election by accusing them of ignoring the reality of the crime issue. All of this has been undone by a 19-page report from the Heritage Foundation released November 4th.
Of course, when people like Hillary Clinton make wild, unfounded claims, most in the media and some low-brow and ill-informed voters will take her at her word. Ill-informed voters tend to result in information challenged elected officials.
Hillary Clinton: “The states with the highest crime levels are states run by Republicans. That’s just a fact.” pic.twitter.com/sv6XQ72FbC
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) November 3, 2022
Specifically, for those 27 cities (out of 30) that are run by politicians who advocate for soft-on-crime policies including defunding the police, no-cash bail policies, refusing to prosecute even violent crimes, and outright releasing of incarcerated individuals. What’s more, almost half of those top-30 cities have Soros-backed “progressive” prosecutors who are fully on board with these goals.
The authors (in the report) continued:
As of June 2022, the top three cities with the highest homicide rates include Chicago, with 304 homicides; Philadelphia, with 240 homicides; and New York, with 197 homicides, the report said.
Those very same big city officials, then look at the tragic results of their own wrong-headed, failed policies and conclude that the real problem is…guns. The solution, naturally, is more gun control laws.
WE MUST KEEP APPLYING PRESSURE TO OUR LEGISLATORS!
We Have a New Website Administrator-Kirk Peters Is His Name
FOAC-ILLEA presents Concealed Carry Seminars with Pro-Liberty Elected Officials, works with County Sheriffs at Satellite License To Carry Firearms Events, provides information tables at Gun Shows, and organizes for Pro-2A Rallies and events. To see the most up to date schedule of FOAC-ILLEA Events, CLICK HERE.
FOAC-ILLEA Annual Meeting and Holiday Luncheon - December
Date: 12/11/2022
10:00 am to 2:00 pm
Location: Al's Cafe
Address: 435 McMurray Rd Bethel Park PA 15102
Our annual meeting will be at Al's Cafe once again. We will be in the upper room, which is accessed via stairs from the back of the restaurant. The menu will be:
The cost will be $37 per person. Advance reservation and payment are required. Please send a check payable to FOAC-ILLEA to:
Dale Brackin
1316 Lindbergh Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15223
The meeting will begin at 10:00 am and end by noon. It will include election of the two board positions expiring at the end of the year.
The luncheon will begin at noon.
Spouses and significant others are welcome at this event.
Legal actions are expensive. Especially in the higher courts. Heck, even the PRINTING alone costs several thousands of dollars, as there are only certain printers that do the work a very specific way. Talk about a monopoly!
Donate Here! Specify ‘HOW’ you would like your donation handled!!
In Conclusion: FOAC-ILLEA is an all-volunteer organization, and we are engaged in a ‘daily battle’ to protect Article 1 Section 21 of the PA Constitution and the 2nd Amendment. Will you help us maintain, regain, and preserve freedom NOW so that we can hand off Liberty to the next generation?
We hope to see you all at the annual banquet in December at Al’s Café!
Yours Most Respectfully,
Kim Stolfer
President, FOAC-ILLEA
Meeting Details:
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/4122213346?pwd=eXU0NFgwbzZxWmJXNWxMRGRRYWFGQT09
Meeting ID: 412 221 3346
Passcode: 1234