Before the gun lobby pays attention, asks Jill Porter of the Philadelphia Daily News. Well, how many indeed? But we are paying attention, but here’s what we see. Let’s take a look at Eric Floyd, one of the scumbags who gunned down Sergeant Liczbinski:
The man wanted in the fatal shooting of a Philadelphia policeman failed to show up at a prison halfway house in Erie a year before he walked away from the ADAPPT Treatment Services facility in Reading, state officials said Monday.
Eric D. Floyd, 33, of Philadelphia, who is wanted in the Saturday shooting death of Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski in North Philadelphia. also has a criminal record that goes back at least 14 years, according to court records.
Floyd was charged in a robbery in Philadelphia in 1994, then convicted the next year. He spent four years in state prison for the crime.
In 2001 he was charged with a robbery in Lancaster, then convicted of the crime the next year.
Two convictions for armed robbery, and let they him out after a few years. He quickly disappeared from the halfway house. So how many indeed Ms. Porter, before we stop blaming the NRA, blaming the guns, and start locking these predators up in prison for a very long time? Armed robbery isn’t stealing a car, it’s a serious, violent crime. Who thought that after his first conviction, he should be let out of prison? How crazy do you have to be to think letting him out early a second time is a good idea?
The criminal who actually shot Sergeant Liczbinski, Howard Cain, also had a history of armed robbery, but he’s currently taking a dirt nap courtesy of Philadelphia’s finest. His rap sheet? Four counts of robbery, carrying firearms without a license, and criminal conspiracy. What was he doing on the streets? Especially when he got 10 years in prison for each armed robbery count.
The third suspect, Levon Warner, who the Philadelphia police have in custody, also had previously been convicted of armed robbery, and was sentences to 7 to 15 years. That was in 1997. I guess he didn’t end up doing the 15.
Howard Cain, Levon Warner, and Eric Floyd. These are the people who are responsible for Seargent Liczbinski’s murder. Making excuses for them by blaming the gun, blaming the NRA, or blaming the law, diverts responsibility for their actions, and cheapens the justifiable outrage over their crimes. It also takes the pressure off of politicians and judges for not doing everything they can to ensure that criminals like this stay behind bars where they belong. It should not take the death of a police officer to realize that dangerous men need to be seperated for society, for everyone’s sake.
Let’s just rephrase some of her article:
“There’s the continuing mindlessness of the criminal rights advocates’ argument that animals such as the scumbags that killed Liczbinski should be free, as if only criminal’s rights should be impervious to modification – unlike all the other rights we have.
There’s the same cycle of act and react, argue and rebut, flail and finger-point in an impotent surrender to violence.
And, worse, there’s the continuing failure to force the change of lax sentences for violent felonies.
The mounting toll is mind-boggling: three Philadelphia police officers slaughtered in two years.
And still the struggle remains for sane sentencing requirements to compensate for the kind of beast among us we don’t know how to contain, the vicious predators who speak with bullets and kill with ease.”
Which has more people nodding in agreement?
Not to mention this absolute lie:
“the gun lobby’s argument that weapons such as the SKS that killed Liczbinski should be available to one and all”
The NRA most certainly does not argue that firearms should be available to one and all–they should be available to the law-abiding!
We are the “gun lobby”. We’re saying don’t blame those of us who jump through the hoops and make the right decisions for people who don’t.
But it’s no different than blaming “the rich” for the existence of poverty.
So aggravating.
I sent this email:
Jill, I read your article. You refer to tragedy, and focus on firearms assuming (hoping? fooling yourself and others?) that criminal violence will be reduced as a result. I want to focus on arrest, conviction, and imprisonment for violent criminals. That is because arrest and conviction rates are known to reduce crime, whereas gun bans are not.
You stated: “And, worse, there’s the continuing failure to force the change of gun laws.”
Banning guns fails because (A) it’s unconstitutional, and (B) it doesn’t reduce violence. Violence is a people problem, an sickness of people’s minds and spirits. Gun bans work to keep guns from people like me (a professional, tax payer, husband, father, law abider, a boon to my community and nation), and have no effect on criminals like those that murdered your police officer (you know, drug dealers, wife beaters, robbers, and generally that scum of society who are a HUGE burden to all of us). Hello Jill? Do you think that law abiders are all just on the brink of doing criminal violence, and all criminally violent are on the brink of becoming model citizens? Get real! This criminal who shot the officer was out on parole and had a violent past. It’s called recidivism, and it’s real. Why did your system let him out? Your system is to blame, not a mere SKS rifle, not the NRA, not me. To think the rifle is to blame is to be foolish. To blame the NRA is to be foolish. You have a penchant for being foolish? Bryan Miller, bless his poor, bleeding heart, is foolish. He’s totally misguided. His FBI agent-brother’s loss is trajic, but he was lost to a dirty rotten murderer, not to an “assault weapon.”
Focus on those that murder and commit violence, not lawful gun owners. You cannot take my rights because of the actions of a few criminals. Lock them up, kill them of you want, but leave my rights alone. I will NOT give up my fundamental rights when you are unwilling to differentiate criminals from good people and treat BOTH groups accordingly.
And compromise? Meaning giving up more second amendment rights? You gotta be kidding. Gun rights have been compromised before and we know exactly where that gets us. Ever more rules and regulations. Evermore. The Dept of Justice and CDC state that these regs have no effect on violence levels. Yet each and every year, you ask for more. No way. Not again.
Compromise? Let’s work together to put those criminals away permanently. Let’s work together to be intolerant of criminal violence (and that means embracing legal violence when necessary). That’s how we will compromise. But yet another gun law? No way.
This is the year of Heller.
Sincerely,
Jill,
In my previous email, probably came off as upset. But please understand. You, Bryan Miller, Nutter, and Rendell are all blaming the “gun lobby” for the murder Sgt. Liczbinski. Nutter went so far as to demand an apology from the NRA. Well you know what, I am the NRA. I am the so-called “gun lobby.” And when you blame them, you blame me. And in a just and free land, I cannot tolerate being blamed for the independent action of another free man. That simply cannot be tolerated. We don’t advance justice and respect by placing false blame, and bearing false witness.
Tell you what. Only because you wrote that article, smearing me like you did for the actions of a sick, violent criminal, I am going to write a nice big check, payable to the NRA.
Have a nice day while you think about the effects of what you said.
I read her article & it made me sick. I have to excuse myself to go throw up.
Her response….
There will always be violent, dangerous criminals. They can’t be killed because it would be convenient and some time or another, after they serve their sentences, they get out of jail. That’s a reality. It’s also a reality that all illegal guns start off as legal guns, bought by someone who may be intentioned – or just maybe someone who needed the quick cash so the gun is resold. The less legal guns,
the less likely a crazy killer with nothing to lose will have a gun to lose. And I can’t for the life of me understand why people like you think anyone outside of a military battlefield needs an assault weapon. If the NRA would be more rational and reasonable, it wouldn’t incite so much anger from people like Nutter and me.
All constitutional rights have limits. So should the Second Amendment.
Thanks for writing.
My reply….. I got a little rambly. But I wonder when she realizes just how serious we are, if she will step up her efforts. Push, and push back. I know that the harder they fight to take our guns, the harder I’ll fight to keep them.
I very much appreciate your sincere reply. Yes, there will always be violent, dangerous criminals. One approach is to ban guns in the hopes that they will be less dangerous. But I’m not sure if being shot is worse than being strangled, clubbed, or knifed to death. Guns equalize these matters…particularly for women. Defensive handgun use benefits women FAR more then men, as women are more easily overpowered. And dangerous, violent criminals can be killed lawfully, by you, by me, or by anyone in any of the 50 states (justifiable use of force to prevent death, bodily injury, or in Illinois, the commission of a forcible felony). We might differ here…if my wife were to kill a would-be rapist, I would say that death was good. To some, no deaths are good, yet to others death to those who deserve it is good.
It’s amazing how divisive this gun issue is. How entrenched both sides are. It’s a little similar to the abortion issue (I am pro-choice but trying to convince a true pro-lifer is impossible). Or the evolution issue (I am an evolutionary biologist, but trying to convince a true creationist is impossible). And so, perhaps, it is with guns. Thankfully, those of us that keep and bear arms, and value the right, have history, the constitution, case law, and public opinion on our side. And we anticipate a biggie with the Heller case.
Need? Plenty of reasons to need guns. But really…needs are considerations of priviledge. Not rights. You don’t need a reason to excercise a right. Sorry, but that’s the way it is. Even if I didn’t need a gun, you could not justify taking it away (outside an appeal to Article V of the constitituion). I can justify the need to own guns, but be assured I do it out of courtesy to you, and not becasue I’m required to justify a need. Assault weapons? Sure, I can think of times that I might need one. Remember the LA riots and the shopkeepers on their roofs, defending against lawless looters? That is a time when having such a rifle could save everything you own, and have worked so hard for. But I don’t own any assult weapons, as they’ve been heavily regulated by the Fed since 1934 (GCA). I do have several semi-automatic rifles, and one of which is just like the one that deranged SOB used to kill the Sergeant. But regardless of what the Philly media tells you, an assault weapon it was not, because it fires semiauto only. Gun owners can’t stand to have the guns we know so much about misrepresented by people with a political agenda that don’t know squat about guns. You call that rifle an assault weapon and you tell an outright lie.
So if that big bad gun lobby conceded on semiauto firearms, then what? Then there would be a new campaign to ban another class of firearms, say pump shotguns. Then gun owners would resist that, and you’d complian that it was irrational and unreasonable to resist such a ban. After all, who really needs a gun like that. Then we are “reasonable” again….and next, it’s all bolt-action guns. And on, and on, and on. Until all firearm ownership is criminalized in the US. This happened in England, and we are very aware of that. And we know that the incidence of violent crimes are growing in England by leaps and by bounds. They are talking about banning kitchen knives, now. They just don’t get it. We do. What happened in England will not happen in the US. Can’t accept the reality of the 2A and an armed populace? Move to England. Or Russia. Or Brasil. Or Myanmar.
“All constitutional rights have limits.” On this we agree. “So should the Second Amendment.” On this we agree, too. Yet the devil is in the limits. Reading DC’s briefs in the Heller case, the limits that Dellinger and DCs amici argued were reasonable were complete and utter bans on all handguns and any functional long guns. What is reasonable about a total ban? This was John Robert’s question. A total ban is clearly unreasonable (under the constitution), and you know it. It’s pretty hard to reaonably limit “shall not be infringed.” Reasonable to me? Clearly, criminals and mentally ill have no right to arms…indeed, they are not even in the militia. Another? Don’t shoot anything or anyone unless you are lawfully justified in doing so. But keep the law reasonable. It’s inherently reasonable to shoot a burglar in your house at night, or a car-jacker in the parking lot, or a rapist in the forest reserve. Anyway, rules such as those are consistent with the right to keep and bear, that shall not be infringed. Keep whatever you want, bear whatever you want, but just don’t use them unlawfully. That’s the kind of limit the 2A should have.
“Rational and Reasonable” being defined as supporting any and all anti-gun legislation no matter how nonsensical or arbitrary.
I remember seeing a CBS or CNN special report about crime in a big city (maybe Philly – don’t remember) a year or two ago. I’m listening to this and they show this kid and say something like “14 year-old Tyrone was arrested for shooting another person two weeks ago…” and here’s this little shit on the street, with a revolver, because he says he needs to protect himself. I’m literally screaming at the TV “He’s out after 2 weeks? HELLO – You think that may be the problem?!?!?!” Should have seen the look on the wifes face. Instead of locking these parasites up they let them loose and then blame “illegal guns” for the violence.
Man, think about how much the media encourages violence. Maybe television, entertainment and newspapers should be “rationally” and “reasonably” sanitized so as to reduce its effects on youth.
I don’t really believe that, just like I don’t believe in more gun control. Because with such restrictions, the news media will be more likely to be controlled by the government-bureaucracy party and become instruments of that party.
Kind of like back in… uhh… now.
Dear Ms. Porter:
Most criminals, and certainly the two who killed Sergeant Liczbinski, are ALREADY banned from possessing firearms, no more law is needed.
So was the illegal alien who shot a young black man recently in my town, less than 24 hours after release after serving a sentence on felony assault. He is banned from owning a firearm as an illegal alien and a felon, and it took him less than 24 hours to acquire a handgun and ammo, and find a target.
See how effective gun bans are? This is why people like you lose the arguement. Bans don’t affect the people doing the shooting, and it is bad people doing shooting, not guns and not the law-abiding gun owners you think should be disarmed.
Your inability to see the failure of your illogic, to see what two decades of “shall issue” laws have done to crime rates, is criminal in itself. You would put the law-abiding at higher risk by implementing a demonstrably failed policy.
How many will have to die before you admit you are wrong?
The Philly Mayor, Nutter and the gun-banners have blood on their hands.
Just a thought here. I am from another state, and not familiar with Jill Porter of Philadelphia. But I agree wholeheartedly with Sebastian and other posters on this issue. Violent scumbags, who have had more than enough chances to turn their life around, need to have the rug yanked out once and for all. Wishing for another person’s death is never a good thing, or an easy choice to make, but when said scumbag kills law officers and innocents in the commission of a violent crime, the choice becomes a lot simpler…. how many of these lives are worth his one?
I am not a regular church-goer, and I’m sure most people I know don’t consider me especially “religious” (although my faith is profound, and personal)… I live in the ‘here and now’ world. That said, I believe that a lot of people who want to ban guns, especially politicians like Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton know exactly what they’re doing. They read the papers, see the reports, and analyze the situation. These people know what will happen if they succeed in banning guns; they aren’t stupid. And since they know crime will increase, as in Britain, New Zealand, Canada, et.al., there is only one word for them: EVIL. I am finished trying to compromise with these people, it is nothing less than dealing with the minions of the devil.