Posted on 05/09/2008 10:34:55 AM PDT by neverdem
Days after a Philadelphia police sergeant was killed with a semi-automatic rifle, Mayor Nutter and Gov. Rendell called upon Congress to enact a new federal assault-weapons ban that would remove such weapons from the streets.
"The time has come for politicians to decide," said Rendell at the City Hall news conference attended by top police brass and state elected officials. "You have to decide whether you're on their side - the men and women who wear blue - or whether you're on the side of the gun lobby."
The federal assault-weapons ban, which lasted from 1994 through 2004, outlawed an array of military weapons and semi-automatics that fire and automatically reload when the trigger is pulled.
The expired bill would not have outlawed the Chinese-made SKS Carbine - outfitted with a 30-round detachable magazine - used to kill Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski Saturday.
But a new version of the legislation, currently languishing in the House of Representatives, specifically lists "SKS with detachable magazine" as a banned weapon.
Supporters of the federal ban said that the restrictions made it harder to obtain illegal weapons. But critics argued that loopholes in the ban made it easy to modify deadly guns to keep them legal.
Rendell and Nutter have sent a letter to the state's representatives and senators in Washington. In it, they ask for a new assault-weapons ban, but do not back a specific piece of legislation.
Nutter said that the city just needs help.
"Those weapons have one goal and use in mind," Nutter said. "They are to destroy human beings and do it as quickly and as dangerously and in as devastating a fashion as possible. I stand here with Governor Rendell and members of the general assembly to ask for help. Our state and federal legislators need to pass laws that protect citizens and do not protect criminals."
Two local legislators are already showing their support. U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah co-sponsored the new version of the assault-weapons ban. And U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak this week added his name to the list of co-sponsors.
Sestak said that after the Liczbinski slaying he decided to see if he could "bring a light to a piece of legislation that hasn't been moving around. Let's add our name to it and try to move this further down the road."
Nutter also criticized the National Rifle Association, saying they should support this effort.
"The National Rifle Association must explain to the public how they can stand behind criminals who have access to these kind of weapons while purporting to protect the Second Amendment right," he said.
NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam said it was "sad to see [Rendell and Nutter] stoop to this level to exploit the death of a police officer."
He said that new laws weren't needed. Instead he questioned why someone like accused killer Eric Floyd - who has a long criminal history and fled a halfway house earlier this year - was out on the street.
"The most important thing for residents in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania is to ask their governor and their mayor what career criminals are doing out on the street," he said. "The problem in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania is violent criminals get multiple chances."
Yesterday's news conference grew contentious when a Philadelphia Inquirer reporter questioned whether the SKS Carbine was technically an assault weapon, noting that the National Rifle Association disagreed with the classification and that a search on www.wikipedia.com brought up information saying it was not.
Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey then got into the mix.
"I don't care about Wikipedia or any other kind of pedias," he said. "If it's not an assault weapon by definition, then add it to the freaking list."
Meanwhile, gun-control advocacy group CeaseFire PA sent a letter to Pennsylvania gun-shop owners Wednesday, asking them to voluntarily stop selling the SKS Carbine. Nutter and Rendell said that they supported the effort.
Fred Delia, 69, owner of Delia's Gun Shop, on Torresdale Avenue near Benner Street, sells the weapon. He said he would not honor such a request.
"I don't want to see any of the police get shot," Delia said. But, he added, "them guns have been sold for the last 20 years."
Delia, who has run his shop for 39 years, said gun-shop owners are being unfairly targeted.
"I understand they're getting mad in the city," he said. "They have to get to the source of this. It's drugs, it's judges." *
Is this for real??
The plan is to continuously add law after law until all guns are banned.
Why, you don’t mean to imply that a citizen can responsibly use a firearm, do you?! The streets will run red with blood! Women and minorities will be hit hard! Think of the children!
/s
Maybe I’ll make a video and post it on YouTube of a future purchase of mine, using the “stimulus package check.”
What is McCain’s record on the previous “assault weapons” legislation?
Oh - and I have learned that an “A” Rating from the NRA doesn’t mean all that much sometimes. I believe it was the NRA that helped PASS the last assault weapons ban. They supported restrictions on magazine capacity as well.
WHY THEY WANT OUR GUNS!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j73SsNFgBO4
(Is “Nutter” REALLY this clown’s name? You made that up, right??)
“No, Ralphie, you can’t have a Red Rider BB Gun. You’ll shoot your eye out.”
DC, as in DC v Heller, where, I suspect the city is about to be shocked into some kind of sense.
A true example of the Peter Principle
Every Employee Tends to Rise to His Level of Incompetence
...just the libs doing another dance...
The postive about this is that there’s an implicit admission that neither Fast Eddie nor Nutter believe that a local assault weapons ban in Philadelphia, or even a ban in the Commonwealth would pass muster. Pennsylvania’s constitution has a much broader protection for gun ownership rights and the General Assembly passed a law that expressly prohibits local legislatures from regulation “lawful” uses of guns (i.e., Philadelphia cannot keep trying to regulate guns locally.
search for channel 10 news, WCAU, they’ll have the footage,etc there. Yes, at least one dressed as Muslim woman, and was escaped from a halfway house in Reading where he was finishing out his sentence for burglary-surprise, huh? They’ve been keeping it very low key here that the perps are Muslim themself, lets just use this death for political purposes, not actually address the issue. Funny thing is, Rendell used to be mayor of Philly-the city with all the crime problems now...
That is personally pretty funny. My deer hunting buddy I met in College (Chico 83!) is named Ralph, and I'm the only one who calls him "RALPHIE!
LOL.
And as you probably know, it’s a line from the Gene Sheppard classic “A Christmas Story” filmed in my home town of Cleveland.
Come take them.
Thanks for the ping!
The "Gun Lobby", or at least it's 400 lb gorrilla, the NRA, had been supporting, and training, "the men and women who wear blue" for decades. Other portions of the "Gun Culture" have been training certain select portions of the US Military, namely designated marksmen, who are not true snipers but who function somewhat like the character, Pvt. Daniel Jackson, played by Barry Pepper, in "Saving Private Ryan"
Wouldn't have needed to ban it specifically, unless it were the fixed magazine variant, rather than the removable magazine variant. The new law only requires one "Evil" feature in addition to being a semi-auto which can accept a detachable magazine of over 10 rounds. The SKS has a bayonet lug. And we all know how many cops and kid have been killed with bayonet lugs.... NOT!
BTW, since the proposed law contains a very broad definition of "pistol grip", virtually all detachable magazine center fire semiautomatics would be BANNED. So would most semiautomatic shotguns and handguns, but for different reasons involving different broad (and vague) definitions.
Can you support those assertions, or are they just the usual denunciations of the NRA from fifteen years ago because they knew when to cut their political losses to a minimum on the issues of waiting periods and backround checks? BTW, those two issues enjoyed great popularity despite the relatively recent Rodney King riots.
You believe wrong. The NRA supported a sunset provision in the last Assault Weapons Ban.
It sunsetted and now you can go back to buying Assault Weapons without spending twenty five dollars a year to support the NRA.
We call guys like you “freedom freeloaders”.
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