U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, R-3rd, on Monday sent a letter to President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton regarding the administration’s decision to join the negotiations for the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty, which opened this week in New York.

The letter, which was co-signed by 130 members of the House of Representatives, expresses Kelly’s concerns that the U.N.’s actions indicate that the treaty is likely to pose significant threats to the United States’ national security, foreign policy, and economic interests as well as individuals’ constitutional rights.

“Unfortunately, this treaty poses major risks to rights protected by the Second Amendment ...,” he said. “I am also concerned that the treaty will seriously harm our nation’s national security and foreign policy interests by limiting our ability to arm our allies, by burdening our defense industrial base, by facilitating the arming of terrorists, and by placing free democracies and totalitarian regimes on the same footing.”

The National Rifle Association supported this letter.

“Any international Arms Trade Treaty that in any way, shape or form affects the constitutional rights of American gun owners is unacceptable,” said Chris Cox, executive director of the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action.

“International organizations and foreign governments do not have the right to restrict the fundamental freedoms handed down to us from our Founding Fathers.”

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An initiative drafted by state Sen. Mary Jo White, R-21st, to help ensure that female students are offered equal athletic opportunities compared to male students received final legislative approval last week and was sent to the governor for enactment.

White’s bill was amended into the omnibus school code bill.

While many schools “are doing an excellent job at complying with Title IX, the federal statute mandating equal education opportunities for students, White said, “several have conducted voluntary audits and discovered they’re not providing adequate opportunities for girls. This legislation simply establishes a procedure to determine which schools need to do more to comply with federal law.”

The legislation would require any public school that provides interscholastic athletic opportunities for students in grades 7 through 12 to submit an annual report to the state Department of Education outlining the athletic opportunities for boys and girls in secondary schools.

Schools can use these reports to determine if they are meeting the requirements of Title IX and to plan for improvement if they are not. Current disclosure requirements cover only colleges and universities.

The report will be made available to the public and posted online.

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Missa Eaton, Democratic candidate for the 3rd Congressional District, said that her campaign fundraising has had its best quarter.

“Since this new campaign staff has come on board, we have obtained over $90,000 in fundraising commitments,” Eaton said in a news release.

“We ended this quarter with $84,403 raised, which is just phenomenal for how small our staff is.”

Eaton also said that her staff has recruited nearly 300 volunteers for her grass roots campaign, and has 1,294 potential volunteers who have signed up to help the campaign later.

She is running against U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, R-3rd, of Butler.