Mountain Views News, Combined Edition Saturday, February 15, 2020

11

OPINION: 

Mountain View News Saturday, February 15, 2020 

JOHN MICEK

SECOND AMENDMENT 
SANCTUARIES ARE THE 
RIGHT'S NEW GUN PUSH


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When one of the Pennsylvania Legislatures most conservative 
members announced her desire to pass Second Amendment 
Sanctuary ordinances that defy state and federal gun laws, the 
temptation at first was to laugh and shake your head in disbelief.

In barely a year in the state House, Rep. Stephanie Borowicz, a 
Republican who hails from rural Clinton County, has proven to 
be anything but shy when it comes to courting controversy. So 
when Borowicz dropped her press release on Second Amendment 
Sanctuaries,it barely registered as a ripple on Twitter.

But as The Trace, a site that tracks gun violence-reduction efforts reports, there is plenty of 
reason to pay attention. That's because Borowicz has quietly inserted herself into a movement 
that stretches across oemore than 400 municipalities in 20 states. 

If the term Second Amendment Sanctuary, sounds familiar, there is a reason for that. As 
The Trace reports, backers purposefully modeled them on so-called oeSanctuary Cities, 
where local officials decline to cooperate with federal immigration authorities.

We're just stealing the language that sanctuary cities use, Bryan Kibler, the state s attorney 
in Effingham County, Illinois, told the Associated Press in 2018, according to The Trace.

The county approved its own oegun sanctuary in April 2018, according to published 
reports, saying gun laws then under consideration by the Illinois General Assembly were 
unconstitutionally broad.

As The Daily Item of Sunbury, Pa. reported earlier this month, the state branch of a group 
called Gun Owners of America has volunteers working statewide on such ordinances. Officials 
in Bradford County, along the New York State border enacted such a resolution last 
December. Another northeastern Pennsylvania municipality is reportedly considering its 
own resolution.

In her statement, Borowicz said she was oeexpressing my complete support for efforts in 
two counties in her district to protect law-abiding . residents against unconstitutional gun 
control laws imposed in Harrisburg or Washington, D.C. 

Among those measures are a proposed oered flag law now before the Legislature that 
would allow police, acting on a court-order, to temporarily seize someone s weapons if they 
believe they pose an immediate threat to themselves or to public safety.

These extreme risk protection order laws, as they re formally known have been shown in 
other states to have reduced gun crimes and suicide.

While legal experts and others believe oeSecond Amendment Sanctuaries are mostly 
symbolic and not legally binding, others say that they could lead to expensive litigation for 
local governments that decline to enforce state and federal gun laws.

To the extent that police chiefs and especially prosecutors view these actions by local governments 
as reflections of widespread community sentiment, they may feel more comfortable 
in adjusting their own exercise of discretion in making arrests and in charging 
decisions, George Mason University law professor Nelson Lund told The Daily Item. oeAt 
least in that sense, it is probably not accurate to characterize them as mere publicity stunts. 

Ultimately, the final battle over these local ordinances will be waged in the courts.

The proper procedure if law enforcement officers and local governments have issue with 
new laws is to bring legal action in the courts, and have courts determine whether those 
laws are constitutional, Jonathan Lowy, the vice president of the legal action project at the 
gun reform group Brady, told The Trace.

There is no small irony here that the very legislators and officials pursuing these sanctuary 
protections are those who kick back the hardest when local officials, tired of federal and 
state-level inaction on gun violence-reduction issues, move to enact ordinances stronger 
than those in existing federal law.

Such was the case when officials in Pittsburgh enacted tough local ordinances in the wake 
of a murderous spree at the Tree of Life Synagogue in 2018 that claimed the lives of 11 
people.

Pennsylvania state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, a Republican and outspoken gun-rights activist, 
called for Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto s impeachment as a result.

Republicans already have an image problem with voters when it comes to gun issues. They 
ll have even more explaining to do when a mass shooting erupts in one of their Second 
Amendment paradises.


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LEFT TURN /RIGHT TURN

STUART TOLCHIN

KIA ORA

TOM PURCELL

As I have written over 
the past few months I’ve 
been feeling pretty unsafe 
and frightened not only 
by the possibility of a 
Trump re-election, but 
also by the failure of 
this Country and other 
Countries to direct 
their efforts toward the 
common good. This is 
a time when all nations 
should make efforts 
to work together based on the obvious need 
to find the common ground to allow for the 
maintenance of the planet and all of its sentient 
inhabitants. As one of those at least presently 
sentient inhabitants I am very concerned but 
as I wrote last week I believe, or at least want to 
believe, that Mr. Trump will not be re-elected 
and that internationally all countries will 
recognize the present emergencies and will 
together begin to work for the common good.

 I promised myself that I would look for 
positive signs in the coming weeks that would 
indicate a recognition of the elimination of 
differences and the expression of the necessity 
to internationally work together. What I 
saw last week during the Academy Award 
Presentations was certainly not enough to put 
all worries to rest but there were certainly signs 
that times could change and that opposing 
sides could come together. This morning I had 
breakfast with a fifty year old colleague and 
remarked to him that I was absolutely amazed 
that Jane Fonda, of all people, acted as the 
representative of the entire Academy and was 
chosen to bid the viewing public good night.

 For those of you who don’t recall, 
during the 1970”s Jane Fonda, yes the Jane 
Fonda of Grace and Frankie, was the most 
reviled celebrity in the United States. During 
the Viet Nam War, I hope you remember 
that, she had gone to North Viet Nam as a 
sympathizer with Ho Chi Minh and a famous 
picture was taken of her astride a rocket. 
She was called Hanoi Jane and all good 
Americans of the time hated her. The place 
she has presently in our collective hearts now 
illustrates the way things can and will change. 
It is a good sign. Referring again to the Oscar 
Presentation there were multiple positive 
indications that we are moving toward an 
appreciation of the need to eliminate National 
differences and work together for the common 
good. The category formerly known as the 
best foreign language Film had been renamed 
Best International Film arguably a recognition 
of common work rather than of separation. 
The winner in this category was the Korean 
Language film Parasite which was also 
nominated for the most-honored prize, Best 
Picture of the Year. Yes it won, the first non-
English Language picture to win the award and 
a hopeful sign of international respect.

 There were more surprises. The award 
presented to the Best Actor in a motion picture 
was presented to Joaquin Phoenix who gave 
an amazing acceptance speech in which he 
passionately and emotionally plead for sanity, 
justice, and change. He announced that he was 
using his voice for the voiceless and went so far 
as to question the morality and the sensitivity 
of human beings who are indifferent to the 
welfare of other human beings, other sentient 
beings, and to the planet itself. His expressed 
concern for cows whose children were ripped 
away from them and their milk then stolen was 
a concern I had never heard before.

 Finally, I want to discuss the 
presentation of the Screenwriting Oscar to a 
remarkable screenwriter-director-actor. This 
man describes himself as an indigenous person, 
half Maori (the indigenous inhabitants of New 
Zealand) and half-Jewish. He calls himself 
a Polynesian-Jew and often uses the name 
Taika Waititi Cohen. In his acceptance speech 
he emphasized the despicable behavior that 
Europeans have exhibited toward the indigenous 
cultures that have been almost genocidically 
destroyed and forgotten. In his acceptance 
speech he stated “the Academy would like 
to acknowledge that we have gathered on the 
ancestral land of the Tongan, the Tataviam and 
the Chumash. We acknowledge them as the 
first people of this land on which the motion 
picture community lives and works”. Certainly 
most of us have forgotten or are completely 
indifferent to this history. I believe that this 
statement is intended to make all of us, who 
are momentarily secure and comfortable, 
aware that we cannot maintain this position 
unless we are aware of our insensitivities of 
the past and make every effort to correct them 
in the future. In the film, which he created, 
Mr. Waititi Cohen plays Adolph Hitler as an 
imaginary friend of a ten year old boy. At first 
the boy, like many German people of the time, 
adores his Hitler; but over time realizes that 
Hitler, like all-false Gods demanding obeyance, 
is unworthy of his adoration. The film ends 
with the boy kicking his imaginary friend out 
the window whereupon Hitler explodes into 
nothingness. There is, I believe, a message here 
for Americans.

 Mr. Waititi ends his speech with two 
untranslated Maori words KIA ORA. I looked 
these words up in my iphone and the words 
are understood to have the meaning “Go in 
Health- Be Safe! Amazingly when my Yiddish 
grandmother would send me off to School in 
scary Southside Chicago (my parents were 
already opening our grocery store –Stuart 
Food Mart) she would say in a language I never 
understood very well Gay Gezunt which I now 
look up in my iphone and learn, what I already 
instinctively knew, that it means Go in Health 
and Be Safe.

 So the Jews and their very distant fellow 
inhabitants of the planet had this continual 
hope for the children. Go in good health and 
return that way. This, I am sure is the hope 
that all peoples of the world, past, present, and 
future hold for their children. This common 
hope must be recognized if the future of our 
children is what we all wish for them. I am so 
relieved to find hints that this dream of mine 
and yours and everyone else can be realized. 
Kia ora

Gay gezunt 


NEW HAMPSHIRE MUDDLE: 
BERNIE UNDERWHELMS THE 
YOGI BERRA DEMOCRATS

Yogi Berra has 
a timely warning 
for the fractured 
Democratic 
party. The 
baseball legend 
and accidental 
oracle is reputed to have said, oeIt gets 
late early out here. 

Translation: Democrats better get 
their act together - rallying behind a 
candidate who can actually beat Donald 
Donald - and doing it sooner rather 
than later, lest they tear themselves 
apart in a marathon slog to the mid-
summer national convention.

The results Tuesday night in New 
Hampshire make that task more urgent 
than ever. If Democrats fail to coalesce 
behind someone with moderate 
crossover appeal, they re going to be 
stuck with Bernie Sanders - the GOP 
s dream opponent, for reasons that are 
obvious to everyone except his zealots.

Yeah, he won the primary. But he eked 
it out with the lowest winning percentage 
- 26 percent - in the history 
of the primary. Four years ago in New 
Hampshire, he got 152,000 votes. This 
time, he got roughly 75,000. Granted, 
the field of rivals this time was much 
bigger than in 2016, but that s because 
many in the party know darn 
well that Sanders, with his oesocialist 
tag, would be a big beautiful cake on 
Trump s plate.

Even though Sanders is holding his 
core base of Bernie Bros, he has yet 
to demonstrate that he can expand 
his appeal and unite the party. And 
his Bros certainly don t help; at victory 
headquarters Tuesday night, they 
booed Pete Buttigieg. Because that s 
how the Bros roll.

But here s the problem: If the more 
electable Democrats keep divvying up 
the not-Sanders voters, Sanders will 
keep winning with tepid pluralities 
and will eventually cement an unbeatable 
delegate lead. He s also far better 
organized and financed than Buttigieg 
and Amy Klobuchar, who is now faced 
with the daunting task of ramping up 
in time for Nevada, South Carolina, 
and 15-state Super Tuesday.

I haven t yet mentioned Joe Biden. It 
s hard to do so without wincing. It s 
like watching a car wreck. If Sanders 
is stopped, it s seems unlikely that Joe 
will do the deed.

Biden limped out of New Hampshire 
in fifth place with a paltry 8 percent, 
the worst showing for a former vice 
president since Dan Quayle pulled 
out of the 2000 Republican race five 
months before the primary. Fun fact: 
This is Biden s third presidential bid, 
and he has yet to win a caucus or 
primary.

The former vice president has fled to 
South Carolina, where he believes that 
black voters will be his firewall in state 
s Feb. 29 primary. But that s a shaky 
assumption. Black voters are jonesing 
to defeat a detestably racist president, 
and even though they respect Biden s 
partnership with Barack Obama, they 
re not likely to stick with a candidate 
who has the whiff of a loser.

No Democrat can win the White 
House without strong black support 
and turnout. But if not Biden, who? 
Sanders has shown no ability to rally 
them (although he s making some 
gains with Hispanics). Buttigieg and 
Klobuchar are starting from scratch 
with the black community. And in 
white New Hampshire, Elizabeth Warren 
(have we mentioned her yet?) didn 
t even score with whites, finishing in a 
distant fourth-place finish. Faced with 
likely fundraising woes going forward, 
she may not be around long enough 
to woo voters of color. As for Mike 
Bloomberg, the Democrats wild card, 
he s been busy this week apologizing 
anew for his mayoral stop-and-frisk 
program - a past sin that could hamper 
his own outreach.

Bottom line: There s no clarity in sight, 
because Democrats remain divided 
along racial, generational, class, and 
ideological lines. For now, Sanders 
is strongest with the lefty young and 
white working-class folks lacking college 
degrees. Buttigieg and Klobuchar 
are strongest with (and fighting each 
other for) older folks, suburbanites 
with college degrees, and more moderate 
voters. And with Biden fading, 
nobody knows where voters of color 
are likely to go. But a winning Democratic 
coalition requires unity among 
all.

Warren, in her concession speech 
Tuesday night, pleaded for Democrats 
to come together, to stop their fractious 
infighting. In her words, candidates 
should not oeburn down the rest 
of the party to be the last man standing 
.We can t afford to fall into factions. 

Or, as Yogi Berra also warned, oeYou 
ve got to be very careful if you don t 
know where you are going, because 
you might not get there. 

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