Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
“A rising tide of stolen guns helps fuel Philadelphia’s gun violence epidemic,” The Philadelphia Inquirer reports. “A surge in new gun owners and a spike in gun thefts from cars are contributing to the city’s gun violence crisis, police and experts say.”
An anecdote presented to prove the case involves an armed criminal who, with two armed accomplices, robbed a store of cash and a gun. The incident is then tied in with “Philadelphia’s surging tide of stolen guns, one that has risen in the last two years to an unprecedented high water mark,” and that in turn is used to segue into another factoid:
“Philadelphia has recorded more homicides this year than ever before — 545 — the vast majority of them caused by gunfire.”
While “caused by predators firing guns they obtained in spite of citizen disarmament edicts” might be a more accurate way of stating that, doing so would not support the next contention The Inquirer is betting readers will swallow:
“More people with guns – The pace of people purchasing legal guns in Philadelphia has soared, with many of them first-time owners. The swelling ranks of gun owners over the last two years has likely made the stolen gun problem worse.”
Note the use of the word “likely,” but give them that. What they’re really trying to make us believe is that owning a gun is a big front-end part of the problem.
“[C]ar break-ins that yield guns have shot up 37% this year, according to police data,” we are told. “The rise in new gun owners and gun thefts from vehicles may be related.”
They “may be.” Leaving a gun in the car carries definite risks. What else “may be” is that “law-abiding” armed citizens don’t wish to travel through dangerous areas unarmed but also fear being caught if they have to park their cars and enter a “gun-free” establishment. The mandate is what creates the unsafe condition.
While it’s also true that new gun owners with less experience and training may be less informed on security options, it’s also true that “seasoned professionals” have guns stolen from their patrol cars seemingly all the time. Want some examples?
I could keep doing onesies all day, but I’m going to let Michael Bloomberg’s “journalism project” give me a break:
“The Trace examined records from more than 100 law enforcement agencies and found that they had collectively reported the loss or theft of at least 1,781 guns between 2008 and 2017. The vast majority were department-issued handguns, but the count also included hundreds of rifles and shotguns, as well as four fully automatic submachine guns. The firearms were stolen out of glove boxes and closets, left in airports and on the roofs of cars, and in one case, forgotten in a high school bathroom. Some were later involved in crimes ranging from aggravated assault to homicide.”
Don’t get me started on “Only Ones” and bathrooms.
There is one admission in the Inquirer piece that again, points back to “gun laws” as being the catalyst and shows how those who are intent on flouting them do so without missing a beat: So-called “straw purchasers” make false police reports to give themselves an out if a gun traceable to them is recovered.
Enact a rule and the criminals will find a way to ignore it, if not turn it to their advantage.
That’s because it’s really not about guns and never has been. It’s about people who don’t follow the rules preying on those who do, and about government edicts aiding and abetting the predators by imposing ever more infringements on citizens inclined to obey. The “dilemma” the Inquirer reporters are wringing their hands over has no solution if that reality is ignored and politicians instead go for the supposed “commonsense gun safety law” that is actually stupid and dangerous.
That is exactly what Philadelphia politicians are doing, suing the state over preemption and demanding “restrictions that the city can’t impose without state approval, such as requiring a permit to purchase a firearm within the city, setting limits on how many guns someone can purchase within the city during a certain time period, or ‘disarming firearm owners who pose an extreme risk of physical harm to themselves or others but have not yet acted.’”
Like the insane, totalitarian Queen of Hearts said:
“Sentence first — Verdict afterwards.”
Who seriously believes violent sociopaths who kill for petty gains, over disagreements, for revenge, or just because they feel like it, and do so without remorse, need permits to get as many guns as they want? Who seriously believes putting restrictions on people who don’t victimize others will do anything to change that, except to give an advantage to the aggressors?
Maybe focus on the attackers and on what they do, with full due process, and if they are proven beyond a reasonable doubt “to pose an extreme risk of physical harm,” maybe keep them apart from the potential victim pool until they no longer do?
Not that Soros DA Larry Krasner sees that as an option…
It seems the people who would benefit the most are the ones who keep voting for politicians who make everything worse.