400 Homicides in the Killadelphia
WHOO-HOO! GO TEAM GO! GOIN’ FOR A RECORD
You’d think I was talking about the Iggles, but nope: it’s more pathetic.
We hit 400 homicides this weekend in Killadelphia, two of which took place on my route to work.
There was little peace or hope on Philadelphia streets on the weekend before Christmas, as four men died early yesterday in separate shootings, pushing the city’s 2006 homicide tally to 400.
The number of homicides in the city so far this year stands at its highest level since 1997, when 418 were recorded. From 1990 to 1997, the city averaged 435 homicides annually, with a high of 503 in 1990…
We have a week left: my bet is that we break the 1997 record. Not enough time to hit 503, perhpas, but the knuckleheads and morons definitely have time to crack 418.
Hell, they probably see it as a challenge.
26 Responses to “400 Homicides in the Killadelphia”
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December 26th, 2006 at 4:13 am
First Philly was the fattest city, next up the deadliest…..
How very sad.
December 26th, 2006 at 3:14 pm
Gun control? Gun control?! Who needs gun control?! We need more guns on the streets in people’s hands so that they can deter crime.
Right?
December 26th, 2006 at 8:23 pm
You don’t live in Philadelphia, and have no idea.
I’m a big 2nd amendment rights person myself. Learned how to shoot in Boy Scouts.
I DO however, subscribe to howard dean’s logic that different circumstance require different tactics. he belkieves int he conservative ideal of states’ rights when it comes to guns, and has an A rating from the NRA.
“If I thought gun control would save lives in Vermont, I would support it. If you say “gun control” in Vermont or Tennessee, people think you want to take away their hunting rifle. If you say “gun control” New York or L.A., people are happy to see Uzi’s or illegal handguns taken off the streets. I think Vermont ought to be able to have a different set of laws than California. Let’s keep and enforce the federal gun laws we have, close the gun show loophole using Insta-check, and then let the states decide for themselves what if any gun control laws they want.”
Personally, I don’t think that rural PA needs more than federal gun control laws, but I also believe that in places like Philadelphia stronger measures are needed. And you can argue that “Homicide is tied to a willingness to resort to violence” til you’re blue in the face, but the fact is that ANYONE pushed far enough resorts to violence: it’s in our nature.
The difference between going after someone with a knife or a club is that you don’t have to worry about stray bullets, richochets, etc. Too many people in philadelphia are killed by bullets meant for the person standing next to them. PA has some of the weakest laws regarding guns in the whole country, even weaker than Virginia’s, and the problem with straw dealers makes the problem worse.
December 27th, 2006 at 2:42 am
Automobiles don’t cause accidents anymore than guns shoot people or matches start fires and yet cars have federal regulations on safety standards and equipment, driving itself is a priviledge and not a right, becoming a registered driver costs money, requires driving training, mandatory insurance and registration if you own a vehicle, and there are all sorts of ways you can get into trouble driving that can either take you off the road or put you into jail.
I like guns just as much as the next guy. What I don’t understand is why these trolls think gun control means taking guns away from people who are law-abiding citizens who are responsible and work within he law? They seen to have no problem trying to control access to birth control, no problem trying to control what a woman can do to her own body, no problem trying to inject their religion into public education, and especially no problem whatsoever arguing that even the thought of gun control is clearly a case of infringment on the 2nd amendment, stating the right is absolute, and yet…these are the same people who argue that flag burning is against the law, even though it too is a protected right under the 1st Amendment?
Bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch “Oh gun control! Guns don’t kill people! You just want to take guns away from people! We have a right to bear arms! We have a right!”
…
“Flag-burning? Why, that’s un-American! I support a flag-burning amendment that would make burning an American flag illegal! You shouldn’t be allowed to do that, no sir! That’s traitor actions. Those people who burns flags? They’re clearly turrists!”
“Yet firearms are rarely used in violent crime.”
It’s a poor and weak argument to comment on a regional issue regarding homicide in Philadelphia with a brief citation from someone else’s work when you clearly live in Oz…
December 27th, 2006 at 3:39 am
Ok, I’ve got to jump in here.
I’m a Philadelphian, something of a liberal and a gun owner. The reason that my gun nuttier friends claim that gun control = confiscation of firearms from law abiding owners is that it often is.
Consider a few other large US cities that effectively bar private ownership of pistols- D.C. N.Y.C, Chicago, S.F. If I, a law abiding person, with a squeaky clean background (both PA and NJ thought I was upstanding enough to be allowed to practice law there) wanted to move to any of these cities, I would be forbidden to keep my .45.
Yet my future clients (read felons) can get firearms pretty damn easily.
Secondly, THERE IS NO GUN SHOW LOOPHOLE.
At a gun show, there are 2 kinds of vendors, firearms vendors and other vendors. A non- firearm vendor may sell items that aren’t firearms without performing an instacheck. A firearm vendor may also sell a non firearm item without performing an instacheck.
If a firearm vendor wants to sell a firearm at a gun show, they have to follow the same Fed and State laws that control firearms sales that a conventional firearms dealer would have to follow.
The ‘loophole’ is that a non FFL (Fed Firearms License) dealer selling stuff like outdoor clothing, books, cleaning kits and the like doesn’t have to check with the DOJ to figure out if you are a felon.
If Philadelphia and Pennsylvania were really, really serious about decreasing the amount of illegal firearms in the hands of felons, there would be actual stings and enforcement of anti straw buyer laws. Colisimo’s on Spring Garden would get fined into oblivion and we’d be on the way to reducing our murder rate.
Instead, politicking about guns is like politicking about porn or child molesters. It’s pretty hard to stand up and say “But Megan’s law is stupid window dressing- most molesters are friends and family, not the creepy stranger down the block” or “Hey, porn didn’t make me into Ted Bundy”. So politicians get to point at something unpopular, make some noise and claim to ‘Have done something about the problem”.
/rant
December 27th, 2006 at 4:33 am
“Clearly guns do not cause crime just as matches do not cause arson.”
Where did anyone suggest such a relationship, Mr. Troll?
December 27th, 2006 at 3:28 pm
You don’t live in Philadelphia, and have no idea.
No, I live in a gun-friendly area that severly punishes anyone caught with an unlawful gun or an unlicesed cocealed carry charge.
There seems to be an inverse relationship between the lawlul possession and bearing of arms with violent crime.
BTW, Alex has the understanding of this issue. His analysis is exactly correct.
December 27th, 2006 at 3:30 pm
Ed Kennedy’s car has killed more people than my guns
December 27th, 2006 at 3:32 pm
Make that ‘TED’ (Ed was his crazy uncle in the attic).
December 27th, 2006 at 6:52 pm
“Ed Kennedy’s car has killed more people than my guns”
\
oh jesus fucking christ.
That’s the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard. When losing an argument, bring up ted kennedy.
What are you, retarded?
“I can’t fix the drain. Goddamn Ted Kennedy.”
“I lost the basketball game: fucking Kennedy ruins everything.”
Clown.
December 28th, 2006 at 2:43 am
Brendan- you need to spell phonetically when you use the Ted Kennedy argument:
‘Wat- ahh yuu retahhded?’
“I kahhnt fix the drain. Goddamit, Teddy boi”
But in the US, more people die as a result of gunshot wounds than do driving accidents caused by drivers named Kennedy.
I recognize that the US is a violent place, and that it isn’t just firearms, or poverty or pop culture or Ted Kennedy.
I just have a real dislike of window dressing ’solutions’ that don’t actually fix anything.
December 28th, 2006 at 2:33 pm
People die from gunshot wounds from people that are neither trained nor legal.
I have never seen a trigger pull itself.
December 28th, 2006 at 2:35 pm
Handguns are an effective, portable and relatively safe means of self defense.
That is why the police carry them.
December 28th, 2006 at 3:49 pm
“People die from gunshot wounds from people that are neither trained nor legal.”
Oh really?
Sure about that?
Wanna reconsider?
C’mon man, that was too easy. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel with you. But then, you are a graduate of the Texas school system, right?
December 28th, 2006 at 4:52 pm
honey it isn’t the texas school system. I’m a texas grad too. It is because he lives near dallas. That place drains the life and the intellect right out of you (if you ever had any). Just thinking of it makes me ill and gives me the shivers.
It is one of the most god forsaken places I’ve ever seen.
December 28th, 2006 at 5:00 pm
yeah, the only area of Dallas that I’ve seen that was halfway tolerable was deep Elum, and that’s cus I played there on tour with MSI.
I don’t like to write off a whole state, but I wouldn’t cry if the mexicans took it back…
December 28th, 2006 at 7:38 pm
the best part is watching him argue with a straw man.
I’ve already stated, numerous times, that I believe strongly int he second amendment. That’s not convenient for Dingaling the Wonder-Troll, so he pretends that I’m some anti-gun demagogue.
Which I’m not, but it’s not like “honest argument” has any place in the right wing play book.
December 28th, 2006 at 8:26 pm
I guess the answer seems to be to disarm everyone, including the police…..right?
I’m sure that’ll help
Here’s a suggestion for those who think guns are the problem. Just put a sign up in your front yard declaring your house GUN-FREE.
December 28th, 2006 at 10:54 pm
No one’s saying that except you, Troll McStrawman. Try again!
Hey! I’ve got an idea for a sign for your house. It should read “Shitforbrains Lives Here.”
Whaddya think?
December 28th, 2006 at 11:28 pm
it’s all clinton’s fault?
December 29th, 2006 at 1:23 am
oh my god! you are right he is arguing with a straw man! that is hilarious!
December 29th, 2006 at 1:25 am
p.s. having just returned from texas…I’m here to say that you can write off more of the state than I previously realized.
December 29th, 2006 at 2:55 pm
No one’s saying that except you, Troll McStrawman. Try again!
Actually, you did, in your links, suggest that guns are dangerous in that innocent people are killed haphazardly, even by police. Since you offer no other solution other than “guns are bad”, what else is your reader suppposed to infer?
If there were a better tool for self defense against criminals, the police would be carrying that instead of handguns, wouldn’t they? Also, in your harangue, always remember that the police have no legal obligation to protect you.
I guess the lesson to be understood is that areas that restrict lawful possession and carrying of weapons by law abiding citizens have higher crime rates, especially gun crime, than areas that do not.
December 29th, 2006 at 3:14 pm
After reflecting upon this, it really doesn’t matter how you feel since it’s a constitutional right.
Oh, and before you hand me the same ol’ tired line that it’s not an individual right, but a right of the state, perhaps you could explain why, in the same bill, all of the other 9 amendments deal with individual rights, but not the second. Perhaps right of assembly or freedom of religion could also be construed as a right of the state! C’mon, you can do it. Just use the same twisted Yankee liberal logic you use on the 2nd!!
December 29th, 2006 at 3:55 pm
Enjoy your strawman argument, dipshit.
The only one you’re arguing with is yourself.
Classic Texan: dumb as a bag of hammers.
December 29th, 2006 at 3:58 pm
“Actually, you did, in your links, suggest that guns are dangerous in that innocent people are killed haphazardly, even by police.”
Yes: it’s called “reality”. The same way people also lose fingers and hands to power tools. And like power tools, guns are That’s YOU putting words in MY mouth.
“Since you offer no other solution other than “guns are badâ€, what else is your reader suppposed to infer?”
See above, stupid. You’re the one who says I say that. Not me.
God, of all the trolls in the world, I get Rainman. I think Wapner’s on…