By: Teresa Mull

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf is making gun control a priority, and he’s stocking his “Office of Gun Violence Prevention” with extremely anti-gun toadies.

Penn Live reported in August:

Just two days after a police standoff with a gunman in Philadelphia that brought the nation’s attention once again to the issue of gun violence and one day after five more people were shot in that same neighborhood, Wolf signed an executive order that make changes to executive branch agencies and programs to target what he calls “the public health crisis of gun violence in Pennsylvania.”

The sweeping initiatives and reforms that the governor is calling for will be overseen by a senior adviser on gun violence reduction position. Wolf appointed Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency chairman and former Philadelphia police commissioner Charles Ramsey to that post. Ramsey will lead a new Office of Gun Violence Prevention within the commission that creates a Special Council on Gun Violence that is tasked with developing a plan to reduce gun violence in the commonwealth.

“You don’t have to look any further than who’s leading the Office of Gun Violence Prevention,” said Dr. Val Finnell, Pennsylvania Director for Gun Owners of America. “Ramsey has been an outspoken critic of national concealed carry reciprocity. He’s also been vocally against the state firearms preemption law. When Philadelphia tried to pass their illegal gun control ordinances, Ramsey told Mayor Nutter, ‘As far as I’m concerned the laws are valid and we will act as if this conversation with the DA just didn’t take place.’

“If the governor had any intention of making this unbiased and objective office of gun violence prevention, he would never have appointed Charles Ramsey, because he’s been such an outspoken critic of the Second Amendment,” said Finnell.

A press release from Wolf’s office said:

Governor Tom Wolf will sign an executive order to make sweeping changes to executive branch agencies and programs to better target the public health crisis of gun violence. The executive order is the result of months of work by Governor Wolf and his administration to focus on substantive steps that can be taken to reduce gun violence and make communities safer. Governor Wolf will be joined by Charles Ramsey, Chair of the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency, who will use his expertise in a new role advising the executive branch on implementing these changes.
The nearly two dozen new initiatives and reforms directed under the order fall into four primary categories:

• New oversight and data sharing
• Reducing community gun violence
• Combatting mass shootings
• Addressing the rising number of gun-related domestic incidents and self-inflicted shootings, including suicides by gun

Governor Wolf will direct the administration to create new state offices focused on violence prevention and reduction, expand programs that promote safety, refocus departments on combatting gun violence as a public health crisis, and increase collaboration and data sharing between the public, government agencies and other states.

“Too many Pennsylvanians are losing their lives to gun violence, and even more Pennsylvanians’ lives are being disrupted by the terror and fear caused by gun violence,” Governor Wolf said. “We simply are not doing enough to stop people from dying and to give communities the peace of mind that they deserve. This order will make sure the executive branch is doing more and focusing on gun violence as both a public safety problem and public health crisis. I will continue to engage the General Assembly in order to advance important gun safety reforms when they return to session.”

Finnell said of the Office of Gun Violence Prevention:

“It’s a Soviet-style ministry of propaganda, and it’s going to be used to manufacture data against gun owners, against the Second Amendment, and you don’t have to look any further than to see who runs it. It’s nobody objective.”

Teresa Mull is editor of Gunpowder Magazine. Contact her at [email protected].