Posted on 02/16/2012 5:30:41 AM PST by marktwain
The gunfight is over, and the cities lost. The question is: Do they realize it yet?
For decades now, large majorities of urbanites - the people, the politicians, the interest groups - have favored stricter controls on guns, for reasons city residents find self-evident. In the last five years in Philadelphia, 1,656 people have been slain, and of those, more than 1,300 died of gunshot wounds. For many city residents, myself included, guns represent a plague, not protection.
From the perspective of bloody Philadelphia, gun-rights advocates - and their allies in Harrisburg and Washington - appear all too willing to tolerate death in the city so they can protect the sanctity of the Second Amendment in the country.
Gun owners don't think about the debate in these terms, of course. They see gun control as an assault on a constitutionally guaranteed right, a classic case of government overreach that threatens their ability to protect their homes and families. What's more, many are convinced gun control actually leads to more violence, not less.
Right or wrong, their arguments are winning. Big. Cities would do well to realize that new gun-control legislation is, for now at least, a nonstarter, and to focus on other crime-fighting strategies.
Instead, we have New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg in a Super Bowl ad calling for "commonsense reforms that would save lives," while desperately trying to look like a regular guy and not some overbearing statist. Bloomberg is chairman of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a group that claims 600 members, including Mayor Nutter. Personally, I find its aims admirable, and given Bloomberg's immense personal fortune and political independence, he's well-suited to the quixotic role of gun-control champion.
In the short term, though, his agenda has no shot. According to an October Gallup poll, only 26 percent of Americans favor a handgun ban. More stunning is the finding that only 43 percent favored outlawing "assault rifles." Good luck, Mayor Bloomberg.
A couple of decades ago, those polling numbers were altogether different. In 1991, 60 percent of respondents told Gallup that handguns ought to be banned, and 78 percent favored more stringent controls.
What accounts for the huge shift in public opinion? Some say people feared President Obama would snatch up all the guns, but that doesn't wash. National sentiment began turning against more gun control before he took office, and the feds have done next to nothing to expand gun control since Obama arrived (indeed, the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence has given him "F's" across the board).
A better explanation for the widening disapproval of gun control is that Americans are far less likely to be victims of violent crime today than they were two decades ago. The national homicide rate has fallen 51 percent since 1991. Guns are a lot less scary when they aren't being used to kill as many people.
The homicide rate in Philadelphia has dropped over that period as well, but the decline hasn't been as steep (30 percent) and our rate is still four times as high as the national number. Which is another way of saying that, in Philadelphia, guns are still completely terrifying.
So I understand why mayors of similarly violent cities want more tools to get rid of illegal guns; and why 30 Pennsylvania towns, including Philadelphia, have (futilely) adopted gun-control ordinances in defiance of state law.
And what did that get them? Pennsylvania House Bill 1523, now actively under consideration. If it passed in its current form, it would empower lawful gun owners and organizations (did somebody say NRA?) to sue cities that ignore the state prohibition on local gun-control measures. Cities that lose the legal fight would be on the hook for a $5,000 civil penalty per case, and damages up to triple the cost of litigation.
Mayor Nutter appears to realize that new gun-control laws are not likely, his membership in Mayors Against Illegal Guns notwithstanding. At the rollout of his new crime initiative last month, he didn't mention new gun-control measures once, instead focusing on better using an existing law that allows for big jail sentences anytime someone is found on a city street with an illegal gun.
"I've got a state statute right now that can result in a sentence of five years. . . . Let's use the tools that we have available," Nutter said. "The Lord helps those that help themselves."
Here's hoping. Because Philadelphia needs to realize, when it comes to guns, the city won't be getting help from anywhere else.
The only ‘good news’ article I have read so far today.
Another opinionated, blowhard, self-righteous, delusional Liberal who just doesn’t get it.
Dreck from start to finish.
All killed by law-abiding, God-fearing individuals! /HEAVY S
No, he didn't. He said he understood why cities were driven to pass such laws, not that he approved of their doing so.
The author also does not recognize the disconnect between his claim gun control is necessary to prevent “gun violence” when the murder rate has gone significantly while the gun control cause has been going backwards.
At this point I stopped reading. I don't care to read the fecal matter that trickled out of this moron's brain and on to the web. There isn't anything that he could possibly say after this that would in any way justify the few seconds of my life spent reading his opinions.
I could write the author and try to use reason and logic, facts from the FBI, statistics that prove him to be wrongheaded but he's already seen them and has convinced himself that guns are bad, and a new law that bans guns is the answer.
I'll just save my time, and effort because there is no point in arguing with a total asshole.
I had a discussion with a lib on gun control laws.
She, of course, wanted more, and was pointing out that assclown’s editorial a while back pointing out how Giffords was a victim of lax gun control laws.
At one point, my libinlaw stated the “reducio absurdem” argument of “I suppose you think we shouldn’t have any laws about guns”. My response was “what’s the purpose behind gun control laws? What’s your goal?”
The answer I received was “so people don’t get killed”.
Closer: “It’s already illegal to kill people. Does that law prevent people from being killed?”
Not a dent in the liberal mentality, but she sure couldn’t logically continue the argument.
“The author also does not recognize the disconnect between his claim gun control is necessary to prevent “gun violence” when the murder rate has gone significantly while the gun control cause has been going backwards.”
Neither does he make mention that of those 1300+ murders, 1300+ were already illegal under existing law. Additional gun control laws would do what? After the many years of articles, research, and dissemination of information—and after his attended public or private school for probably close to two decades—he is still oblivious to the obvious nonsense and illogic of his point of view. This is hard to believe. There is either a flaw in his thinker or he is simply not being honest. Perhaps his real intentions are political in nature.
“They see gun control as an assault on a constitutionally guaranteed right”
This is his problem right there.
He doesn’t understand that it’s a Constitutionally ‘protected’ right. Not a ‘guaranteed’ right.
The Constitution doesn’t ‘give’ us the right to guns. It ‘protects’ our right to have them.
As with all libs, they don’t see rights as ‘inalienable’ but as government ‘given’ rights that can be taken away.
“...want more tools to get rid of illegal guns...”
Exactly. No gun control laws ever go rid of illegal guns.
There is a major factor in the decline of murder rates that seldom gets mentioned. It has nothing to do with a decline in criminality.
Some considerable portion of the decline is a result of better emergency medicine. Those who don’t die before receiving emergency treatment survive at a much higher rate than in decades past.
This is also a major reason for the considerable drop in fatalities in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars versus previous wars, along of course with improved body and vehicle armor. A VERY large proportion of injured troops who survive today, perhaps with missing limbs, etc. would have died in previous wars.
In nearly ever case, cities with the toughest gun control laws suffer the most murders.
This is not the first, nor last, time that politicians want to divert attention away from their own failure and incompetence at law enforcement by turning the subject to a tool of some crime.
Yes, I imagine inalienable rights would present a ‘tough fight’ and so much the better.
Nothing to do with the terrifying people in Philadelphia, then?
There are millions of guns in millions of households nationwide no more or no less 'terrifying' than those in Philly.
This article is incredible. As if the rise in gun ownership and the fall of the violent crime rates over the past 20 years are completely unrelated.
I also like how he drops “NRA” in there as a pathetic attempt at a “boo!” line. No facts, no figures, no logic, just a straight emotional rant.
My God liberals are dumb.
This author has, at his fingertips the EXACT number of people shot in Philadelphia and the EXACT number of those who died from the gunshots.
Having such a vast store of knowledge, perhaps he can also list the EXACT number of shootings committed by LEGAL, licensed gun owners, and the EXACT number of people who died as a result of those shootings.
The LEGAL gun owners I know (me, too) hope and pray they will never, ever NEED their gun.
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