Blackmoor Vituperative

PA Police Refusing To Obey The Law
– Ask the Attorney General to rein them in!

Gun Owners of America E-Mail Alert
8001 Forbes Place, Suite 102, Springfield, VA 22151
Phone: 703-321-8585 / FAX: 703-321-8408
http://www.gunowners.org

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

The PA State Police are refusing to obey the law, despite court decisions to the contrary.

Federal privacy laws prohibit the mandatory use of social security numbers as identification. In a recent court decision, U.S. District Judge Juan R. Sanchez stated that gun owners cannot be required to supply social security numbers when buying a gun or applying for a concealed carry permit.

But the PA State Police, with the help of the Attorney General Tom Corbett (R), are disregarding the court and are asking a circuit court judge to strike down Sanchez’ order. They don’t want to issue privacy warnings, as required by Section 7(b) of the Privacy Act of 1974; they want to keep collecting the social security numbers of all gun buyers and carry permit holders.

Gun Owners Foundation has been assisting Lt. Col. Michael Stollenwerk, who is leading the fight to stop the registration of gun owners. Stollenwerk won victories in two other states: first in California, where he convinced authorities that their requirement to force gun buyers to turn over their social security number violated federal law; and then again in Virginia, where authorities were less accommodating and only agreed to respect citizens’ privacy after losing in court.

Pennsylvania has been equally contemptuous of federal law and citizen privacy, so Stollenwerk took them to federal court. In 2003, Stollenwerk tried to get a concealed carry permit and purchase a gun. Both efforts failed when he refused to fork over his social security number. On February 24, 2006, Judge Sanchez ruled against Pennsylvania, although the state is refusing to comply.

That’s where your help is needed!

ACTION: Please urge Attorney General Tom Corbett (R) to respect the privacy of gun owners and follow federal law. You can reach him at the contact info provided below. You can reach him by phone, fax or Internet. A pre-written letter is appended below for you to copy-and-paste into Corbett’s webform.

Phone: 717-787-3391
Fax: 717-787-8242
Webform: http://www.attorneygeneral.gov/theoffice.aspx?id=71

—– Pre-written letter —–

Dear Hon. Corbett:

I urge you to require the Pennsylvania state police to respect the privacy of gun owners and follow federal law. Thus, please pull the plug on the state’s appeal of the fine decision handed down by U.S. District Court Juan R. Sanchez.

On February 24, 2006 Judge Sanchez ruled that gun owners cannot be required to supply social security numbers when buying a gun or applying for a concealed carry permit. I agree with that decision. Don’t you?

Gun owner privacy has been threatened since 1968 when the federal government began to unconstitutionally require that firearms dealers keep a record (now for twenty years) of all firearms transactions. This has been nothing but a decentralized gun registration scheme that does nothing to get criminals to comply, but represents a constant danger of being used to confiscate privately owned firearms.

But giving the social security numbers of gun owners to the state police represents a CENTRALIZED gun owner registration list. You should know the history of gun owner registration and how it leads to gun confiscation. Even in this country — in New York City — gun registration was followed by gun confiscation under the Mayor Dinkins administration in the early 1990s.

Again, please respect the privacy of gun owners and please pull the plug on this misguided appeal. Thank you.

Sincerely,

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