Castle Doctrine

Prosecutors and state police are trying to determine whether the fatal shooting Saturday of a 19-year-old man was justified. Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman would not identify the shooter, who told police he pulled the trigger after the two men attacked him with baseball bats and refused to back down. "We will identify him only if he is charged," Ferman wrote in an e-mail. Police questioned the man and released him. The man shot and killed one of two assailants who came after him with baseball bats outside his house.

More than a year after it became a hot campaign issue in the race for Pennsylvania governor, it's even more critical that Harrisburg lawmakers close the so-called Florida loophole that lets Philadelphia gun owners skirt the city's strict handgun-carrying rules. With a renewed push in Congress to nationalize concealed-weapon permits so that any state-issued handgun permit would be valid across the country, the public-safety stakes could loom even larger. As many as 900 city residents - more per capita than in any other among the nation's 10 largest cities - are now packing heat in Philadelphia by virtue of mail-order permits issued by Florida.

HARRISBURG - Standing on the floor of the state House, her voice choked with emotion, the first-term Democratic legislator from Upper Darby explained why she had just voted for the bill tightening regulations for abortion clinics. State Rep. Margo L. Davidson said her 22-year-old cousin had been a victim of Kermit Gosnell. Semika Shaw was "just coming into her own as a young woman," Davidson said, when she died in 2002 from an infection caused by a botched abortion in Gosnell's West Philadelphia clinic.

Saidel aide: No recount yet Secretary of State Pedro Cortes said the recount will start next week in the Democratic primary for lieutenant governor unless former City Controller Jonathan Saidel waves it off. The latest figures from last week's primary show Saidel trailing Centre County state Rep. Scott Conklin by fewer than 3,862 votes, which triggers an automatic recount unless Saidel doesn't want it. Cortes said a recount could cost taxpayers...

Less ideology, more real change Despite the recent election it seems as though it is business as usual in Washington: Play politics and don't worry about what the country wants or needs. This can only mean one thing: Most of the people with power in Washington have been there too long and have simply lost touch with reality. We saw that a grassroots campaign can work, but the tea-party movement is too far right and living too much in the days of an agricultural economy. Instead, how about an initiative from the middle that targets long-term, set-in-their-ways Washington legislators and not ideology?

In the waning days of Gov. Rendell's administration, Pennsylvania legislators tried to trap him in a no-win decision. Conservative legislators attached a controversial measure expanding citizens' right to shoot in self-defense to a no-brainer bill strengthening reporting requirements for sex offenders under Megan's Law. The officials ramrodded the odd bill to passage without debate, hoping Rendell would be more afraid of risking children's lives than...

THE DAY was almost over for Jonathan Lowe, a man who had seen some rough patches in life. But Oct. 1 had been pretty good for the retired Marine, who had recently survived several strokes and a heart attack that required him to wear a monitor. Lowe, 57, spent the evening at a fish fry at a friend's North Philadelphia house and headed home after 10 p.m. That simple journey, it turned out, led Lowe to what is likely the roughest patch he's ever known - and he never made it home.

HARRISBURG - In what has become an annual exercise in the Capitol, lawmakers who support tighter gun control measures - most from Philadelphia - put their quixotic agenda before their fellow legislators. It happened again Tuesday as the House Judiciary Committee considered a flurry of gun-related bills; one that would expand the rights of gun owners and three that would limit them. The legislation that passed would broaden the so-called "castle doctrine," which offers protections to homeowners who shoot intruders who enter a dwelling.

We are finally having a conversation about gun control. President Obama is talking. So are Sens. Joe Manchin and Mark Warner, both with A ratings from the mostly silent NRA. Said Manchin: "Everything should be on the table. " Broadcaster and former GOP Rep. Joe Scarborough said the murders in Newtown "changed everything. " This is what it takes to get America serious: 20 first graders massacred with six female educators, at a school, where all children should be safe. "People think we have a violence problem in the United States, but we really don't.