- Pennsylvania has a symptom, but still no disease

Pennsylvania is a fairly rational place compared to much of New Jersey. Personally I think the hill country around Hamburg PA is some of the most beautiful scenery I've ever seen. I make a twice annual pilgrimage out there every year. Once to go to the Cabelas store, and one more time to do go pheasant hunting at Wing Pointe Lodge. It's a great place. I highly recommend it.

My friends from PA always brag about how in Pennsylvania, you can get a concealed carry permit in 10 minutes by walking into your local police department and showing your drivers license. I'm sure they do a background check etc, but it has always struck me as a profoundly rational place. NJ meanwhile hasn't issued a concealed carry permit to a non law enforcement officer in over 2 decades, so I've always been a little jealous.

Unfortunately, like NJ, and according to The Armed Schoolteacher Illinois, Pennsylvania has it's large, extremely liberal city distorting it's politics too. Today the Black Caucus in the state legislature said that if they don't' get a new gun control law, then they won't vote for the state budget. "No gun control, no cash" is their new motto.

Fortunately, it doesn't seem they have enough state wide power to enforce their (god of puns please forgive me) blackmail. The bulk of the assembly is resolved to not let the rising crime in Philadelphia be an excuse to gut the rights of all the citizens in the state. If it were Illinois or New Jersey, I'm quite sure it would have come down differently.

Alternatively, rather than just punishing the law abiding as gun control legislation invariably does, the speaker of the PA state assembly has proposed putting together a commission to draw up additional legislation to deal with crime control.


That's particularly good news for PA, because it means that their politicians haven't caught the NJ disease yet. At least some of your politicians still act in the interest of their constituents. After dealing with NJ politicians for so long, that kind of lucid public interest makes me a little lightheaded.

If they keep that sort of thing up, I may just pay my extortion (exit) tax after all. I wonder how long it takes to commute to New York city from Scranton?