Philly Moves Ahead With Own Gun Laws, Despite Harrisburg…
|
Comment Commandments:
1) No Personal Attacks. (Debating is encouraged, but be respectful). 2) No Sexual Discussion (unless it specifically pertains to a cited story). 3) No Profanity (Let’s all behave like adults). |
GOLDEN RULE:
Be civil and statesmanlike. You can disagree without being disagreeable. Annoying trolls who break these rules will be blocked from commenting. ***Please don't disable anonymous commenting for everyone else*** |
NOTE TO COMMENTERS: CREATE AN INTENSE DEBATE ACCOUNT
|
-vote comments up or down
-email notifications when someone replies |
-pick a profile picture
-promote your website or blog |
***TOPIC FORUM: 50 STORIES LAST COMMENTED ON***
***LIST OF TOP 50 COMMENTERS***
***LIST OF 50 MOST COMMENTED ON STORIES***
***LIST OF 50 LAST COMMENTS***
.
15 Comments
Gun laws are an excuse to avoid seeing their own failures.
If your going to go that far why not just ban gun sales in the city? Could you imagine all the gun shops that would open up on the city line, it would be great for the economies of the surrounding areas
“We believe that we are within our rights to implement every single bill that we have passed.”
And I believe I have the right to carry a concealed handgun anywhere I please, including schools, courthouses and even on a plane.
However, I know that the PTB will not agree with me and take action to correct what in their eyes is a violation so I do not excercise my right.
It’s time Phil lawmakers were given a good old fashion public spanking and removed from office.
That is the only way to stop such nonsense.
Arrogance, stupidity, ignorance…so many words, so few Philly politicians.
Oh, heck, let them do what they want.
But let’s also stop shipping food products into the city and see how they would manage the animal mentality that would break loose without guns…
Our Kangaroo, er, um, I mean Supreme Court has already spoken to the issue.
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/usr/wbardwel/public/nfalist/ortiz_v_commonwealth.txt
In Ortiz v. Commonwealth, the Supreme Court said:
“….Article 1, Section 21 of the Constitution of Pennsylvania
provides:
The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of
themselves and the State shall not be questioned.
Because the ownership of firearms is constitutionally protected,
its regulation is a matter of statewide concern. The constitution
does not provide that the right to bear arms shall not be
questioned in any part of the commonwealth, except Philadelphia and
Pittsburgh, where it may be abridged at will, but that it shall not
be questioned in any part of the commonwealth. Thus, regulation of
firearms is a matter of concern in all of Pennsylvania, not merely
in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, and the General Assembly, not city
councils, is the proper forum for the imposition of such
regulation. ”
They failed to read or mention Article I, Section 25:
“To guard against the transgressions of the high powers which we have delegated, we declare that everything in this article is excepted out of the general powers of government and shall forever remain inviolate.”
EVERY GUN LAW IN THE STATE is UNCONSTITUTIONAL.
I love that ” City Moves” part of the byline. Too bad there’s more to it. I’d like to see Philadelphia move clear out of Pennsylvania. Because of Philadelphia and the Federal highway Funds that Eddie gave them for cheap bus riding, the entire rest of Pennsylvania’s roads and bridges are falling apart. Now Eddie wants to lay taxes and fees on the rest of Pennsylvania to cover Philadelphia’s free ride.
Defying the law seems to be a problem with Philadelphians, whether they are common criminals robbing and killing or City Politicians that can’t seem to follow the Pennsylvania State Constitution they swore to uphold. Guns aren’t Philadelphia’s problem, honesty is.
Certainly, it’s clear that if only the criminals have guns it’ll be that much tougher to throw them out of office. We can argue the right to keep and bear arms until we’re blue in the face; but I’ve never committed a crime, never will and the only way you’re going to take my gun is to risk dying. Who’s going to win that battle?
Coincidentally, though, every yearn for more gun-control leads directly to significant spikes in gun sales. So, my theory is that the introduction of gun-control measures and bills is a conspiracy implemented by gun shop owners. Seems pretty obvious to me.
Philly city council cracks me up… The real problem isn’t the criminals that are hauled in by the cops, it’s the criminals that are sitting on the bench. Please read:
Charge briefly dropped for Phila. teen
By Dwight Ott
3/25/08
Inquirer Staff Writer
A Municipal Court judge dropped an attempted-murder charge yesterday against a 17-year-old defendant accused of wounding a Philadelphia Housing Authority police officer in a robbery attempt last month, but the charge was later reinstated.
“He shot, but what makes it malicious instead of stupid or inexperienced?” Judge Deborah Griffin asked rhetorically during the hearing for Zahir Boddy-Johnson of the 2300 block of North Diamond Street.
Griffin’s decision to drop the charge and lower bail for Boddy-Johnson from $5 million to $75,000 brought an angry response from the officer whom the teen shot. The District Attorney’s Office immediately refiled the attempted-murder charge and successfully appealed the reduction in bail.
. . . .
The wounded officer, Craig Kelley, 49, registered his own objection afterward.
“What does it take? Does it take for him to go out and shoot somebody who is not a police officer with an assault rifle?” asked Kelley, a 17-year veteran of the Housing Authority police.
. . . .
According to testimony from homicide Detective Patrick Mangold, Boddy-Johnson tried to hold up the Housing Authority officer on Feb. 17 to raise money to pay off restitution to the courts for a previous crime.
After the hearing, Kelley’s wife, Patricia, found that allegation cause for even more outrage: “This is why crime is out of control. He’ll be shooting someone else to pay for this crime soon.”
During the hearing, Boddy-Johnson’s attorney, Michael Coard, said his client had not intended to kill Kelley, just to rob him of his laptop and gun to sell.
. . . .
Griffin is currently under scrutiny herself. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court is considering whether to remove Griffin from the bench for failing to report to the state bar association that she is a convicted felon.
Wait, wait… it gets better:
Tom Ferrick Jr.: Policing alone won’t solve crime problem
Justice system, high dismissal rate still a scandal.
Stripped to its essentials, the anticrime effort announced last week by the Nutter administration amounts to a redeployment of about 200 officers to a dozen high-crime districts. It makes sense – putting officers where crime is – but it’s hardly rocket science.
. . . .
What will happen as the police fan out in those high-crime neighborhoods? They will make more arrests.
And what will happen to those who are arrested for serious crimes – also known as felonies?
They will go to the courts, first for preliminary hearings, then for a trial.
And what will happen at their preliminary hearings?
More than half of them will walk and go back out on the streets.
According to the latest data, 54 percent of the felony cases in Philadelphia are dismissed at the
preliminary – hearing stage.
Some are dismissed because a judge rules there is not enough evidence to advance to a full trial.
But most – nobody knows exactly how many – are dismissed because the case fails to come together: Either witnesses or the arresting officers fail to appear. Or the prosecutor is not ready. Or an important piece of evidence has not arrived.
In Philadelphia’s high-volume court system, which handles more than 1,000 cases a week, preliminary hearings rarely come off as scheduled. They are postponed, and then postponed again, and then dismissed by a judge who feels he must move on to other cases.
I first reported on the city’s high dismissal rate eight years ago. So it is a continuing scandal, not a new one.
Federal studies have shown that Philadelphia has the highest dismissal rate of any of the nation’s 75 largest counties – nearly double the national average of 24 percent. This is from data compiled by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2002, the lastest year available for department researchers.
So, policing alone is not going to solve the crime problem in Philadelphia. It must involve the
entire criminal-justice system.
And the first thing that you need to know about the criminal- justice system is that it is not a system. It is a collection of independent duchies that do what they want, when they want, and how they want to do it.
The police and prisons are under the control of the mayor. The courts are an independent branch of government. The district attorney is elected by the people. The public defender’s office works under a contract for the city and the courts, but it is an independent entity.
. . . .
This is my last column for the paper, but I cannot exit stage without offering a bow to the audience, thanking you for your kindness and attention.
Getting to the core of the problem is to cease the elimination of competition in Philly by labor organizations that also eliminates opportunities to residents. The real criminals here are the unions. I’m not sure, but I think that makes me anti-union. They’ve become what they were originally formed to guard against; only worse. Right to Work should resolve many ills. Free markets, so forth, etc.
Carry on.
So what’s next, the Brotherly Love Wall, complete with check points to make sure no one is bringing in any guns bought, legally, outside the city limits?
How many hard earned tax dollars are going to be wasted litigating these bogus laws, as well as damages in civil suits that are sure to be brought?
Legalizing some drugs would cause most of the crime to disappear.
But, there are a lot of Philadelphians whose jobs depend on keeping drugs illegal, despite the carnage those laws cause by pushing profit margins through the roof.
If Philadelphia politicians would work as hard at taking the profit motive out of drugs as they fight to deprive their citizens of Constitutional rights, the problem would largely evaporate.
Legalizing drugs would cause very little crime to disappear in Philadelphia and in most big cities.
Says who? We’re spending, by some estimates, over a hundred billion dollars a year on a war against our poorest, most pathetically addicted people.
We did not nearly have as much crime, or as many people in jail, until the “war on drugs” picked up steam.
If we just let them buy drugs at the drugstore, the way they could until WWI, then they won’t be robbing and killing to get money to pay thousands of dollars a week for what costs pennies to manufacture.
Just as the Mafia bought votes to keep Prohibition in effect, so today’s profiteers from the “war on drugs” work hard to keep drugs illegal, and profit margins astronomically high.
That ensures there’s always a need for “10,000 more policemen”.
The Philthy-delphia politicians who support taking away your rights to gun ownership
and creating their own laws, should all be thrown in prison and languish there for
decades. Yes that includes you Mayor and police chief.
You are nothing more then Anarchists and little dictators and will skirt our
Constitution for your own personal gain.
I hope the NRA skewers all of you and the city residents will end up paying
the litigation out of their own city tax’s.
Put the hammer down on Philthy-delphia NRA & GOA I am with ya!