March 16, 2005

Shooting Out His Butt


21 people have been shot to death in Philadelphia over the last 8 days, making the City of Brotherly love more dangerous to its citizens than Iraq was to US soldiers over the same period. Beleaguered but unindicted Mayor John Street today wrote a letter to Governor Rendell, and said the City has an "urgent need" to address gun laws that "handcuff" the City's ability to regulate gun sales.

Street wrote:
We need tighter controls not only to protect our children and families but also to protect our law enforcement officers who are at risk every day as they attempt to safeguard our citizens.

The human cost of gun violence is devastating to the soul of the city and weakens the fabric of our region. Consider:

* Almost 80 percent of our 348 homicides in 2003 were committed with a gun;

* In a three-year period from January 2001 to February 2004, there were 4859 gunshot victims killed or injured by gun violence, nearly ten percent involved juveniles;

* Almost a year ago we had the tragic murder of Faheem Thomas-Childs outside his school. Unfortunately there have been more juvenile murders since, sometimes youth shooting youth.
I like that manner of argument -- set out your concern, and illustrate it with important examples that support the concern. I'm going to take a stab at it too. I think Mayor Street is talking out his butt. Consider:

    None of the murders have been connected to lawfully purchased guns.

    If all guns sales were prohibited in Philadelphia, there's no reason to believe that there would be any fewer gun related homicides.

    Using the same rationale, a drunk driver with a revoked license responsible for another drunk driving offense that results in death becomes an argument for banning car sales in the City.

    The Mayor's letter didn't even attempt, not even once, to connect lawfully purchased, owned, possessed, and carried guns with any of the homicides he references.

Now, I readily confess I'm not nearly as good as Mayor Street is at this kind of stuff, so I'll let you be the judge -- how'd I do?

[Linked to the Beltway Traffic Jam].

Posted by Peter at March 16, 2005 07:10 PM
Comments

I like your points. I'm not familiar with Philly politics (why is Street beleagured but unindited, for example), but it seems like Street is focusing on the wrong thing. Are there enough cops in Philly? Are they doing their jobs effectively? Is it gang/drug violence that is responsible for the murders? What are the sources of the ILLEGAL handguns? If you answer questions like this, you start to see potential solutions. Taking guns away from the law-abiding people who aren't committing the murders is just stupid.

Posted by: Glenn at March 17, 2005 09:54 PM

Philly's politics are very similar to DC's, Glenn. The criminals are a major voting bloc for the mayor.

Actually, I just came across an old Philadelphia magazine that highlighted Bill Cosby for a campaign ad he'd done for Mayor Street that helped him win the last election. It basically had Cosby acknowleding that Street isn't a warm and fuzzy guy. That his way of giving the average man on the street a hug is to put more cops on the street.

While that may have made for great campaign political points, the current crime situation in Philly suggest an unfulfilled election year promise.

And to want to take guns away from law-abiding citizens in the current Wild West atmosphere is truly cynical.

Posted by: dan at March 18, 2005 09:12 PM