John Hohenwarter, who is Pennsylvania’s NRA State Liaison and representative in Harrisburg, had this to say about Philadelphia attempting to enforce its own gun laws:
This morning John Hohenwarter, the NRA’s lobbyist and representative in Harrisburg, said Nutter would be squandering taxpayer dollars — which could be better used to put police officers on the street — if he mounts a futile legal challenge to established precedent that prevents local governments from enacting their own gun laws.
“We heard the same thing out of Mayor Street’s office the last couple of years,” Hohenwarter said. “The programs that the mayor is backing are nothing more than attempts to grab headlines,” he said. “Chances are, it’s going to be thrown out immediately, and if they keep trying to appeal it, you’re looking at a lot of cost to the city for nothing.”
I couldn’t agree more.
The root of the problems are just too hard to deal with for Philly politicians. They don’t want to accept that this is a waste of money because then that means they might have to look at a lot of other things that are a waste. Then they might have to consider that serious money management is a step toward serious reform. Then, God forbid, they might have to acknowledge that fiscal policies and regulatory burdens might also be stifling any desire for residents to be productive or for productive people to move there.
In other words, even PR stunts like this this ultimately lead back to the really hard, no easy sound bite problems that they are desperately trying to avoid acknowledging. Oh yeah, and there’s that whole lock the damn criminals up thing, too.
They can’t take serious steps – serious steps would require confronting the electorate with the Truth – and there’s a Jack Nicholson quote lurking over there…