SJG26
member
ADMINS - please post to NEWS section if worthy.
Background - a police officer was tragically gunned down this week in Reading, but - that does not justify this editorial---please educate the Eagle editors appropriately(NOTE BOLD SECTIONS):
http://www.readingeagle.com/blog/editorials/archives/2006/08/action_needed_n_1.html#more
Action needed now to stop gun violence
The Issue: Reading Patrolman Scott A. Wertz is murdered in the line of duty.
Our Opinion: Handguns must be taken off the streets.
Enough! We’ve lived with senseless deaths; the deaths of innocents; the deaths of malcontents and lowlifes; we’ve lived and continue to live, lamenting the cold steel that has rendered our city impotent.
It’s enough!
We need to make our legislators and officials act now!
Philadelphia has become a morgue, a killing field that rips children and innocents from life.
Reading has become, with the murder of Patrolman Scott A. Wertz, a symbol of total disregard for law and humanity.
Handguns have no conscience; they have no remorse; they only function as a way to deal pain and death; they are useless tools of civilization. They need to be put in a cave along with the scribblings of the Cro-Magnon; They need to be relegated to the darkest corners of our world.
This is by no means a call to repeal the Second Amendment. Rifles and shotguns have an honored place in the history of this country. But handguns have become a cancer that must be eradicated, and the Second Amendment should not be used as an excuse to ignore what has become a national disgrace.
Mayors of cities considered to be much safer than Reading have mounted aggressive campaigns against the illegal use of handguns. Reading should do likewise.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, frustrated by the ease with which criminals can obtain guns, filed a federal lawsuit earlier this year against 15 gun shops in five states whom he has accused of knowingly selling guns to individuals who were buying them for others. One of those shops is in Berks County.
People who can’t buy guns legally often use individuals who do not have criminal records to make the purchases.
According to the lawsuit, hundreds of guns that can be traced to the shops were seized in New York City between 1994 and 2001.
There probably are more, but because of a measure called the Tiahrt amendment, added to a law passed by Congress in 2001, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is prohibited from providing state and local law-enforcement personnel with data on the origins of illegal guns.
Bloomberg has launched a campaign to have the Taihrt amendment overturned.
However, the powerful gun lobby is in the process of pressuring Congress to make it a criminal offense for law-enforcement officials with different departments to share gun-tracing information with each other.
How any organization, in good conscience, can suggest legislation than would be such a boon to criminals is unfathomable.
Even before the wave of violence that has enveloped Philadelphia this year, Mayor John Street had been insisting that something needed to be done to curb the illegal use of handguns.
“The proliferation of guns is completely and totally out of control,” Street said earlier this year as law-enforcement officers displayed 1,500 guns they had taken off of the streets in the first few months of the year.
There have been calls by Street, Bloomberg and other mayors for better cooperation from state and federal lawmakers, but so far there seems to be little political will to do anything to stem the tide of bloodshed.
Because Congress doesn’t seem to be doing anything to crub handgun violence, 15 states have enacted laws allowing crime victims to use deadly force without fear of being prosecuated for murder.
This is not the answer. we need less gun violence; not more.
We call on all lawmakers at all levels of government to do what’s right. Get handguns off the streets. Innocent lives are at stake.
send your comments here:
[email protected]
Background - a police officer was tragically gunned down this week in Reading, but - that does not justify this editorial---please educate the Eagle editors appropriately(NOTE BOLD SECTIONS):
http://www.readingeagle.com/blog/editorials/archives/2006/08/action_needed_n_1.html#more
Action needed now to stop gun violence
The Issue: Reading Patrolman Scott A. Wertz is murdered in the line of duty.
Our Opinion: Handguns must be taken off the streets.
Enough! We’ve lived with senseless deaths; the deaths of innocents; the deaths of malcontents and lowlifes; we’ve lived and continue to live, lamenting the cold steel that has rendered our city impotent.
It’s enough!
We need to make our legislators and officials act now!
Philadelphia has become a morgue, a killing field that rips children and innocents from life.
Reading has become, with the murder of Patrolman Scott A. Wertz, a symbol of total disregard for law and humanity.
Handguns have no conscience; they have no remorse; they only function as a way to deal pain and death; they are useless tools of civilization. They need to be put in a cave along with the scribblings of the Cro-Magnon; They need to be relegated to the darkest corners of our world.
This is by no means a call to repeal the Second Amendment. Rifles and shotguns have an honored place in the history of this country. But handguns have become a cancer that must be eradicated, and the Second Amendment should not be used as an excuse to ignore what has become a national disgrace.
Mayors of cities considered to be much safer than Reading have mounted aggressive campaigns against the illegal use of handguns. Reading should do likewise.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, frustrated by the ease with which criminals can obtain guns, filed a federal lawsuit earlier this year against 15 gun shops in five states whom he has accused of knowingly selling guns to individuals who were buying them for others. One of those shops is in Berks County.
People who can’t buy guns legally often use individuals who do not have criminal records to make the purchases.
According to the lawsuit, hundreds of guns that can be traced to the shops were seized in New York City between 1994 and 2001.
There probably are more, but because of a measure called the Tiahrt amendment, added to a law passed by Congress in 2001, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is prohibited from providing state and local law-enforcement personnel with data on the origins of illegal guns.
Bloomberg has launched a campaign to have the Taihrt amendment overturned.
However, the powerful gun lobby is in the process of pressuring Congress to make it a criminal offense for law-enforcement officials with different departments to share gun-tracing information with each other.
How any organization, in good conscience, can suggest legislation than would be such a boon to criminals is unfathomable.
Even before the wave of violence that has enveloped Philadelphia this year, Mayor John Street had been insisting that something needed to be done to curb the illegal use of handguns.
“The proliferation of guns is completely and totally out of control,” Street said earlier this year as law-enforcement officers displayed 1,500 guns they had taken off of the streets in the first few months of the year.
There have been calls by Street, Bloomberg and other mayors for better cooperation from state and federal lawmakers, but so far there seems to be little political will to do anything to stem the tide of bloodshed.
Because Congress doesn’t seem to be doing anything to crub handgun violence, 15 states have enacted laws allowing crime victims to use deadly force without fear of being prosecuated for murder.
This is not the answer. we need less gun violence; not more.
We call on all lawmakers at all levels of government to do what’s right. Get handguns off the streets. Innocent lives are at stake.
send your comments here:
[email protected]
. As well, our CHL classes are overflowing.
