Posted on 07/17/2007 5:36:40 AM PDT by new cruelty
When Mayor Street spent 15 hours waiting in line for an iPhone recently, the city was not impressed by his love of new technology. Rather, Street had to answer to a passerby asking, "How can you sit here with 200 murders in the city already?"
Local politicians say they know the source of the problem: the lack of gun control. Gov. Rendell recently complained the state legislature "has been in the control of the NRA." Street blames the increasing murder rate on "the dangerous proliferation of guns on our city streets." Last Tuesday, two City Council members announced the novel legal tactic of suing the state government to let Philadelphia pass its own gun laws.
The desire "to do something" is understandable, but new gun laws aren't the answer.
In the five years from 2001 to 2006, Philadelphia's murder rate soared more than 36 percent while nationally, the murder rate increased only 2 percent. Indeed, only two other cities in the top 40 experienced a sharper rise in murder rates, according to FBI crime statistics.
But if the cause of more murders in Philadelphia is the lack of yet more gun control, why isn't murder increasing in the rest of Pennsylvania? Pittsburgh saw just a 7 percent increase.
Why haven't murder rates gone up in the rest of the country? Should Phoenix, the city closest in size to Philadelphia, claim that its murder rate remained virtually unchanged for the last five years because of the supposed lack of new gun control? How should Dallas explain its 24 percent drop in murder?
It is not that guns are more likely to be used in Philadelphia murders, either. The proportion of murders involving guns is similar to that of other cities.
It would appear that Philadelphia's problems have something to do with Philadelphia, not the lack of more gun control coming out of Washington or Harrisburg.
Could it be that Philadelphia simply isn't doing such a great job at law enforcement? Since 2001, Philadelphia's arrest rate for murder has fallen by 20 percent, according to the Pennsylvania Uniform Crime Reporting System. Nationally, and among cities with more than 250,000 people, arrest rates have remained virtually unchanged. It isn't so surprising that Philly's murder rate has gone up more than in other cities. After all, criminals are getting away with murder in Philadelphia.
Sure, Philadelphia has slightly fewer police than it had in 2001, but that drop is no different from the small drop that has occurred nationally. What is different is that Philadelphia has experienced a significant drop in arrests per officer relative to the rest of the country.
But it is not just a problem of police. The city is seeing lower conviction rates, and it is not keeping criminals in jail for very long. One could make up for this difference by hiring more police - research has shown the number of police officers to be the main factor in reducing crime. But Philadelphia's problem is how it uses the police it has.
Pointing to more gun-control laws as the solution is simply a way for politicians to pass the blame. Besides, such proposals offer little hope for actually reducing the murder rate. They've all been tried before, from one-gun-a-month limits and reporting stolen guns to the ultimate catchall - letting Philadelphia pass its own gun laws again.
Take the law that seems to be Rendell's favorite: the one-gun-a-month purchase rule. It would reduce the number of gun shows in the state by about 25 percent and shut some stores. But since just a fraction of one percent of criminals with guns get their weapons at gun shows, there would be few benefits from those restrictions. Collectors or those who might legitimately want to get more than one gun at a time are the ones who are inconvenienced. In fact, no published academic study by criminologists or economists shows that such limits reduce violent crime.
The sooner local politicians stop playing politics in the state Capitol and realize that the problem lies in the city's low rate of solving crimes, the sooner the problem will be under control. After all, Philadelphia's current gun laws are similar to those of many others around the country.
What is not the same? In Philadelphia, criminals are less likely to answer for their crimes.
This reminds me there’s a gun show in my neighborhood next weekend. I really want an HK USP. Should I treat myself?
Olney was a borderline hellhole when I went to La Salle, back in the early ‘90s.
LOL. More power to you!
I always look at these high-murder rate cities and wonder “won’t the criminals eventually just kill each other off?”
The “Stop Snitchin’” campaign is doing WONDERS for this, too...
I haven’t seen a lot about that lately. But I imagine that you are right.
Are the firearms laws in PA very strict? If not, civilians better take up arms and protect themselves.
Militia anyone?
Thanks for being here.
It’s absolutely disgusting. I’ve read and heard about this “Stop Snitchin” crap. What the f*** is wrong with these people?
But He’s Black nothing else matters I suppose.
“When Mayor Street spent 15 hours waiting in line for an iPhone recently”
BWAHAHAHAHAHA! The Philadelphia government in action. At least we know what his priorities are.
Poor to no parenting could be a part of the problem. I think it was on hannity’s show yesterday- i heard him make reference to obama... obama had commented on the problem with gun violence. the way he saw it was that people are shooting each other because they hate themselves, they hate themselves because we do not love them enough. So essentially, the blame falls on you for not loving someone who wants to shoot and kill you.
There are days when I believe certain people should be sterilized...
I know it’s not right, and it’s the very antithesis of American freedom, but I sometimes sit and think “what else?”
At the very least Street's parents - retroactively.
Yeah--I know I know--but she's cute.
ROTFLOL. And so it goes.
You will be happy to know that Ted Kennedy, Chris Dodd (the other half of that now-famous “Waitress Sandwich”) are working on that legislation as you read this.
Next on their agenda is a conference with one King Canute on the scenic shore of the Bay of Fundy (at low tide) to discuss a solution to those troublesome tidal movements.
As you may recall, it was those nettlesome tidal movements which caused the heroic Kennedy from saving Mary Jo on Martha’s Vinyard. Had it not been for that 6 feet of water under that bridge, she might be alive today.
Then it will be on to solving the global warming problem by prohibiting any and all future volcanic eruptions.
Might consider getting out as at least ONE early American sage believed that the large cities would only get worse.
This may also help to explain the Red State/Blue State thing.
An astute student of history and human nature, one Thomas Jefferson, predicted all this after witnessing the run up to the FIRST socialist/communist revolution in France while ambassador there. He penned the following observations concerning what would happen HERE should that socialism come to the United States. He CORRECTLY predicted that we would become an increasingly contentious and litigious people as we shouldered one another out of the way to get OURS from the public trough and the trough would soon be empty.
He also knew where the bulk of the problem would originate.
That whirring noise you may hear coming from that mountain in Charlottesville, Virginia is Mr. Jefferson getting up to around 3600 RPM.
“The mobs of the great cities add just so much to the support of pure government as sores do to the strength of the human body. It is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution.” —Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.XIX, 1782. ME 2:230
I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries as long as they are chiefly agricultural; and this will be as long as there shall be vacant lands in any part of America. When they get piled upon one another in large cities as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe.” —Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1787. Papers 12:442
“I view great cities as pestilential to the morals, the health and the liberties of man. True, they nourish some of the elegant arts; but the useful ones can thrive elsewhere; and less perfection in the others, with more health, virtue and freedom, would be my choice.” —Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Rush, 1800. ME 10:173
“Our cities... exhibit specimens of London only; our country is a different nation.” —Thomas Jefferson to Andre de Daschkoff, 1809. ME 12:304
“Everyone, by his property or by his satisfactory situation, is interested in the support of law and order. And such men may safely and advantageously reserve to themselves a wholesome control over their public affairs and a degree of freedom which, in the hands of the canaille of the cities of Europe, would be instantly perverted to the demolition and destruction of everything public and private.” —Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1813. ME 13:401
“An insurrection... of science, talents, and courage, against rank and birth... has failed in its first effort, because the mobs of the cities, the instrument used for its accomplishment, debased by ignorance, poverty, and vice, could not be restrained to rational action. But the world will recover from the panic of this first catastrophe.” —Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1813. ME 13:402
“I fear nothing for our liberty from the assaults of force; but I have seen and felt much, and fear more from English books, English prejudices, English manners, and the apes, the dupes, and designs among our professional crafts. When I look around me for security against these seductions, I find it in the wide spread of our agricultural citizens, in their unsophisticated minds, their independence and their power, if called on, to crush the Humists of our cities, and to maintain the principles which severed us from England.” —Thomas Jefferson to Horatio G. Spafford, 1814. ME 14:120
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