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Opposing groups on guns try to stake out the middle ground
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Opposing groups on guns try to stake out the middle ground
Today, at noon at the State Capitol in Harrisburg, there will be (at least) two rallies: One, by gun-owners calling themselves PA Responsible Citizens "to reinforce the fact that RESPONSIBLE and ORDINARY CITIZENS own and carry firearms"; the second, by CeaseFirePA, calling for responsible, "common sense reforms." In an arena where marginalization of wing-nut opponents has long been the name of the game, it looks like everyone is scrambling to stake out the middle ground.
PA Responsible Citizens asked attendees not to carry any "long guns" at the rally. As Dan Kelley reports in the issue of City Paper out tomorrow, they're not the only ones.
Spell-check. It has saved many a student from the wrath of teachers. Could it save the Republic from gun-snatchin’ liberals?
Organizers of a gun-rights demonstration at the State Capitol over the weekend, wary of public-relations faux pas, seemed to think so. Guns Across America, which contends that wide availability of firearms leads to less crime, urged followers to look the part: Don’t wear camouflage, spell-check those signs and no rifles. “They wanted to promote kind of, like, ‘everyday folks’ dressed in their normal clothes,” says Mike Novak, a volunteer with the group’s Pennsylvania chapter. “We aren’t a bunch of weirdos.”
It didn’t go over well with some protesters, who saw it as infringing on their Second Amendment rights. “All of us aren’t in camo, running through the woods, causing problems,” says organizer Ryan Wallace, from the Northeast. Bickering ensued on social media. Guns Across America dropped its request to lose the camo. Both sides hugged it out and claimed a successful rally.
Shira Goodman, executive director of CeaseFire PA, says she hopes gun advocates’ shift toward the "responsible" goes beyond aesthetics, to real consideration of issues like requiring reporting of lost or stolen guns, abolishing loopholes in background checks, or sharing the state's mental health records with a federal database (which finally came to pass this month after years of heel-dragging). "There are things in our agenda that responsible, law-abiding gun owners that are hunters and sportsmen should be able to get behind," she says. "The problem is historically they claim, 'Slippery slope! They’re coming to take our guns away!' every time we try to talk about common sense legislation, and that’s not productive."
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