charon
Member
Another CNN Anderson Cooper Blog hit piece on firearms -- acting as the Philly mouthpiece
http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/anderson.cooper.360/blog/
Let's see if it gets approved.
http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/anderson.cooper.360/blog/
My ResponsePhilly gunning for more control
With more than 300 murders so far this year, Philadelphia has been struggling to contain gun violence.
If I was a Philadelphia resident, I could walk into any gun shop in the city and buy 50, 100, even 1,000 guns, just like that. All they would do is run an instant background check, and assuming my record was clean, I'd walk out with all that firepower.
There's no waiting period, no rules on who I can and can't sell those weapons to. In fact, state law says I don't even have to get a license for the guns or register them.
Could this be contributing to the gun violence in Philadelphia? So far this year, there have been more than 300 murders, and more than 85 percent of them were the result of a firearm, according to the Philadelphia Police Department.
Ray Jones, a community volunteer with the group Men United, blames state lawmakers for not passing tougher gun laws and for keeping cities like Philadelphia from passing their own regulations.
"It's about survival," Jones said. "People are dying in the streets and we need to get help."
The fight over gun laws has turned into a power struggle between the state government and Philadelphia.
Back in 1994, the state legislature overturned an assault weapons ban, making AK-47s as easy to get as hunting rifles. The next year, rules were eased on concealed weapons. Today it's actually against the law in Pennsylvania for a policeman to ask anyone why they want to carry a concealed weapon.
At last check, there are now 29,000 permits to carry concealed weapons in Philadelphia, compared to about 800 applications for permits back in 1995. One law enforcement source told me the state is handing out permits to carry like "candy."
State Senator Vincent Fumo is a gun owner, and he supports the current laws. "People want to think that this is the wild west, and we don't have any laws. What we don't have is enforcement of those laws," he told CNN.
Many here in the city argue that if Philadelphia had "home rule", as it's called, and the city was allowed to pass more stringent gun laws, people would be safer.
"It really would be appropriate for the city to determine its own sort of destiny," Jones told CNN. "Now our hands are sort of handcuffed."
Who do you think has the right to set the ground rules when it comes to guns? The state or the city?
-- Randi Kaye, CNN Correspondent
Wow, where to begin.
First, the vast majority of firearm crime is not committed by legal firearm owners. Gangland criminals and street thugs use illegal firearms, just like the same criminals sell illegal drugs that are fully prohibited in every state. As it has been found in Britain, if you outlaw all guns the criminals smuggle them in just as easily as they smuggle in illegal drugs.
The type of increased regulation you seem to be suggesting here only impacts those of us who obey the laws. And, a recent study by the CDC, no friend in general of firearm owners, recently found that gun laws have no quantifiable impact on firearm violence. One more time, criminals do not obey the law.
First, while it is hard to pin down a single national study on the issue, common figures from individual studies conducted in areas like Philadelphia and Chicago show that upwards of 70 percent of murders are committed by individuals with existing criminal records with a similar figure for their victims. Basically, criminal on criminal violence. In most cases the criminal did not buy a firearm through legal channels. That pesky background check you so easily dismiss prevents that.
2nd, just how many concealed carry holders are involved in an illegal use of their the firearm? as the CATO Institute notes: "We now have at least 10 years of actual evidence from 25 different states with diverse rural and metropolitan populations, including the cities of Miami, Houston, Dallas, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Richmond, Atlanta, New Orleans, Seattle, and Portland, regarding perhaps as many as 1 million permit holders carrying their weapons for hundreds of millions of man-hours. The results are in, and they show unequivocally that (a) the number of persons currently in possession of permits to carry firearms ranges from 1 to 5 percent of the state's population; (b) criminals do not apply for permits; (c) permit holders do not take to settling their traffic disputes or arguments with guns, or "take the law into their own hands"; (d) shall-issue licensing states have almost no problems with violent criminality or inappropriate brandishing of firearms by permit holders; and (e) some permit holders have used their guns to defend themselves and others. There appears to be no reported case of any permit holder adjudged to have wrongfully killed another in connection with carrying and using his weapon in public. As of this writing, shall-issue licensing laws are creating no reported law enforcement problem in any of the 25 states that have enacted them. Dodge City has not returned; the blood is not running in the streets."
Finally, as to the Evil Assault Weapons, according to the FBI any type of rifle is used in roughly 1-2 percent of firearm homicides. As scary as they are in TV crime dramas, the use of a semi automatic rifle (much less an automatic Assault rifle which is HIGHLY regulated) is a non issue in reality.
Occasionally, like in Miami, such weapons are used by criminals. But in a country of over 300 million people it's just not common at all. They tend to be too expensive and too hard to conceal for criminals.
Also, when you mention: "making AK-47s as easy to get as hunting rifles." well, the second amendment has far more to do with an AK 47 than it will ever have to do with the "hunting use" smokescreen. Hunting is not referenced in the Bill of Rights or the Federalist Papers, etc. Hunting use is simply along for the ride. And again, such weapons are used in homicide about as often as a baseball bat.
Philadelphia has a people problem not a gun problem. People problems are tough on politicians, so its easy to blame the gun people use. I would suggest that addressing issues like inner-city poverty, a culture where people don't snitch and out of control criminal gangs will do a lot more to address the city's problems than dealing with the legal gun owner non problem. The real issues are a lot harder though.
Let's see if it gets approved.
What a bunch of ignorant, emotional, morons. She also advocated for licensing and registration, as if the criminals are going to register theirs!