For the first time in over 30 years, the Democrats will control the governorship and both the Senate and the House in Pennsylvania – the trifecta. Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-Pa.) has already made it clear that he won’t let the opportunity go to waste.
The day after Election Day, Shapiro rattled off a short list from a much longer list of things he and the Democrats plan to do to take away citizens’ freedoms, kill unborn babies, destroy small business, and plunge the long arm of state government deep into pockets of everyday Pennsylvanians.
“We will fund mass transit. We will raise the minimum wage. We will make sure that women have a right to reproductive freedom here in this commonwealth. We will build more housing. We will allow survivors of abuse the ability to confront their abusers in court,” he said.
Since Shapiro lusts after the White House the way Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D-Ill.) lusts after a pizza with the works, expect everything he does from here on out to be a trial run for 2028. That means he’s building his initial platform on issues like raising the minimum wage and abortion, of course. But there’s something else on deck that will challenge Pennsylvania gun owners and will likely take center stage in his presidential run: gun control.
In a message on the Gun Owners of America (GOA) website, Pennsylvania state director Val Finnell said, “I’m not going to sugarcoat it: Pennsylvania gun owners are facing an unprecedented crisis in Harrisburg…. When the new legislative session convenes, gun control will not just be on the agenda—it will be at the very front of the line.”
Reinforcing this point, an anti-gun-rights news site called The Trace reported that “A national blue wave will give Pennsylvania Democrats their greatest chance in more than 30 years of passing gun reform bills that have been languishing in the state Legislature.”
State Democrats told The Trace in October that if they achieved a government trifecta, they would pursue gun reform measures that Republicans have long blocked. Those include bills to ban homemade, untraceable ‘ghost guns’; expand background checks to more types of gun purchases; create a red flag law to temporarily take guns from people deemed a danger to themselves or others; and outlaw conversion devices, also known as switches, that enable handguns to fire up to 1,200 rounds per minute, The Trace reported.
As was the case at the federal level, Democrats won the Pennsylvania House by a wide margin, 111-92. The Pennsylvania Senate was much tighter. Democrats will now hold a one-seat majority in 2027: 26-24. If one Democrat in the Senate flips, Pennsylvania gun owners stand a fighting chance.
That’s not out of the question. Still, you can imagine the pressure that Democrats would apply to anyone of their own who dares to stand in the way of their gun-control agenda. But Pennsylvania has large swaths of rural areas where enough Democrats still care about their Second Amendment rights.
Finnell told GOA membership, “Michael Bloomberg and his deep-pocketed, out-of-state gun confiscation lobby are already preparing to ram their radical agenda through the legislature. Starting in January, every single item on Bloomberg’s anti-gun menu will be on the table.”
Finnell then listed key items from that menu which include:
- Eliminating statewide firearms preemption, which means allowing local cities and towns to enact their own gun control regulations and statutes.
- Red Flag gun confiscation orders that would allow the state greater powers in infringing on the Second Amendment rights of citizens and confiscate their guns without proper due process.
- Universal registration checks, which would criminalize private firearm transfers between responsible gun owners. This would also serve to “set up a backdoor registry of gun owners,” Finnell said.
- Safe storage mandates, under which the state would regulate how you are permitted to store your guns in your own home.
- Bans on homemade firearms.
- Mandatory reporting of “lost and stolen” firearms, which would bring with it potential criminal and civil penalties for anyone who loses a gun or has it stolen from them.
- Bans on commonly owned semi-automatic rifles, “outlawing America’s most popular self-defense rifles and trampling over Article I, Section 21 of the Pennsylvania Constitution,” Finnell added.
When it comes to gun rights, the Pennsylvania Constitution states, “The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State shall not be questioned.”
It appears that Shapiro does not plan to question the Commonwealth’s Constitution when it comes to gun rights; he plans on raping and pillaging it.
“Governor Shapiro and his anti-gun allies in the General Assembly intend to question, infringe, and dismantle that right every single day of the upcoming session,” said Finnell.
The GOA and other pro-Second Amendment organizations are already laying the groundwork for a fight against the gun confiscators in the legislature, in the courts, and at the grassroots.
The Giffords Foundation, the anti-gun rights organization run by Gabby Giffords, has an eye on Pennsylvania, too.
“We’re excited to get to work to finish the job on a number of issues and we know a safer future is coming to the Keystone State,” Giffords said in a statement on her foundation’s website.
“Affordability” has gone out the window like yesterday’s news. The Democrats knew what they wanted to do if they got power back and how they would have power once again. They want to trample on federal and state constitutions. They want to infringe on your First and Second Amendment rights in particular. They want to censor you and disarm you.
If you’re a conservative, there is only one response. We are not going back. None of us can sit this one out. It’s fight or flight, and we have only one viable option, which is to fight.