Sometimes, we get a little ahead of ourselves when it comes to seeing anti-gun monsters in the closet. Some groups overblow the impact of some proposals to make them scarier, a trick we learned from the anti-gunners. The difference is that we don’t have a mainstream media to run cover for our nonsense, and it backfires.
Other times, we don’t realize just how bad a proposal will be.
In Pennsylvania, a simple budget proposal has some major problems built in that Gun Owners of America is very concerned about, and this is a case of, if anything, perhaps not playing up the danger enough.
Some items included in Democrat Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s proposed budget have gun-rights activists crying foul.
Pennsylvania representatives with Gun Owners of America (GOA) are calling attention to two particular items in the budget, the first being a proposed $1 million to fund an Office of Gun Violence Prevention within the Pennsylvania Commission for Crime and Delinquency.
“This office would be nothing more than a propaganda machine to justify more calls for gun control through legislative advocacy,” Dr. Val Finnell, PA-GOA director, wrote in a state alert.
“Once again, Governor Shapiro is trying to assault your Article 1, Section 21 rights in his proposed 2026-2027 Pennsylvania budget.”
The other proposal Dr. Finnell pointed out in the alert is doubling the funding for the Pennsylvania Instant Check System (PICS) to $8.9 million, which would likely result in expanded bureaucracy that would quickly outpace the funding.
“The PICS budget increase could lead to higher costs passed on to gun owners through fees and taxes such as the unconstitutional $2 fee for every PICS check and the $3 tax on the purchase of new firearms,” Dr. Finnell wrote. “Instead of increasing funding to the Pennsylvania State Police (PSP) for PICS, the Pennsylvania General Assembly should eliminate funding for the PICS “Record of Sale” system entirely. This system creates an illegal handgun registry through use of the ‘Firearm Application/Record of Sale’ form (SP4-113).”
Here’s the thing, though. I think this is downplaying the risk because this would be a bit more problematic than just a taxpayer-funded propaganda machine.
We already saw how quickly the media adapted to a federal office with the same function. Everything that came out of that office was treated as sacrosanct. After all, many people trust the government to get it right, not recognizing just how politicized the bureaucracy can be.
If Pennsylvania establishes such an office, it will get the same treatment, and not just in Pennsylvania. Anything they release that’s not a rehash of what someone else has already published will be treated as sacrosanct. Even after the lies from the federal government during COVID, too many people are still willing to trust the government, even if it’s a state government instead of the feds.
This won’t just impact the people of Pennsylvania, but potentially far more as the media runs with the propaganda as if it’s an established fact simply because a government office spouted it.
It won’t be just people in the Keystone State. It’ll be potentially all of us.
Yeah, it may sound like I’m jumping at shadows, that I’m in that first group I mentioned above. In this case, I’m fine with that, because state-sponsored propaganda is something none of us should turn a blind eye to, especially when it’s advocating for the infringement of our civil liberties.
Editor’s Note: The mainstream media continues to lie about gun owners and the Second Amendment.
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