Yesterday’s gun-rights debate in Harrisburg ventured into fairly ridiculous territory, culminating with Upper Darby Democratic state Rep. Margo Davidson posing a preposterous hypothetical involving her and Republican state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe. Pennsylvania Public Radio’s Scott Detrow reports:
“If the gentleman from Butler County stood yelling, knowing that he’s a gun-toter, and I felt threatened, would I be protected under court law if I blew his brains out?” Davidson asked.
Maybe if he “stood yelling” in your bedroom after he broke into your house. Otherwise, probably not. And you thought Davidson’s predecessor, Mario Civera, had a big mouth …
John Baer says Davidson apparently didn’t get the “reasoned civility” memo following the shooting of Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.
“Can you imagine the outrage if this moment was reversed and a white male rural Republican lawmaker suggested blowing the brains out of a black female Democratic lawmaker?” he asked.
By the way, the “Castle Doctrine” bill, which gives gun owners more freedom to use deadly force, passed overwhelmingly.
No fatalities were reported.
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5 Responses
Am I the only one who understood the point Ms. Davidson was trying to make with her comment? “Duty to retreat” is an important concept. I believe it is correct for a citizen to be obligated to avoid the use of deadly force by all reasonable means necessary. The protection of individuals who defend themselves in life-or-death situations has always been there, regardless of what any assault weapon stockpiling wannabe mercenary will tell you. All this does is open up the act of defensive killing to an unnecessary breadth of legal interpretation.
Sadly, this is tame compared to some of Mr. Metcalfe’s frequent shenanigans, for example, refusing to support a non controversial resolution praising an organization’s efforts to assist in the Middle East peace process because the members of the organization were not Christians. While I don’t think that the remarks were acceptable, he is the last person who should be talking about another member’s lack of civility. Mr. Metcalfe is an embarrassment to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and a poor example of the faith he professes.
how about lawmakers just let us protect ourselves,ANYWHERE. not just in our homes, so we are not just a bunch of sheep with our heads up our butts.
Was this a “news” story? It felt more like a column to me. Let’s go ahead and have columnists put their names on opinion columns from now on.
Where is the video of this?