Your Gun Stolen? Now YOU Go to Jail!
Do Not Pass Go
WEST MIFFLIN, PA: Tuesday the Bourough of West Mifflin council passed a gun control ordinance 6-1 which makes it a crime to have your gun stolen. The ordinance is not yet posted on their web site but details are reported by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:
The ordinance, which passed Tuesday night by a vote of 6-1, states, “Any person who is the owner of a firearm that is lost or stolen shall report the loss or theft to the West Mifflin borough police department within 72 hours after discovery of the loss or theft.”
It also sets penalties of no more than 30 days imprisonment and/or a fine of no more than $1,000 for violation of the ordinance. Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
So let’s get this straight. You own a gun. You keep it at home. A burglar breaks in and steals your gun. You have to report the theft within 72 hours or you pay a fine and you spend 30 days in jail. Shouldn’t the burglar be punished and not you?
We here at the NIP can read. Apparently the West Mifflin Borough Council can’t. Because we can’t find anything in the 2nd amendment that give city councils any rights whatsoever in controlling gun ownership by American citizens. Don’t they have anything better to do?
I suggest that you at NIP read the ordinance again. It does not say that the theft must be reported with 72 hours, it says that the theft must be reported “within 72 hours after discovery”.
That means, once you discover your gun has been lost or stolen you must report this fact to the police. What is wrong with that? This is an anti-gun trafficking ordinance, nothing more, nothing less.
And while you’re reading, why don’t you go read the Heller decision handed down by the Supreme Court last year. In it the court ruled that “like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.”
The court made it absolutely clear that the right to own a gun exists side by side with the right to regulate the purchase, possession and carrying of guns.