Anti-Gun “Debate” for Philly District Attorney

Last night, CeasefirePA held its heavily promoted forum for District Attorney candidates in Philadelphia. I intended to send Bitter to cover it, but we both forgot about it. It may be for the best since it was described by the Inquirer as “sparsely attended” and questions were only allowed from journalists and anti-gun activists who had to recount the loss of their family members in “heartbreaking detail.” If Bitter had been there, she probably would have been considered an anti-gunner, and she would not have been able to ask any questions. Even the paper called the event “unusual…political theater.”

There are a few points worth highlighting from the report. One is that two of the Democratic candidates seems to realize that there’s a problem beyond blaming guns for Philadelphia’s problems.

“What it’s going to take,” [Dan McCaffery] said, “is someone with enough balls – excuse my language – to stand up to” soft judges. “If I have to go to war with the judiciary, I will.” …

[Brian] Grady said the most dangerous criminals needed to be incarcerated for decades. He faulted a system in which assistant district attorneys prepared hard to win trials, then fell down on the job in the sentencing phase.
“Sentencing is not a day off for the A.D.A.,” he said. “Sentencing day is a day of reckoning.”

Those statements may well have come with plenty of anti-gun rhetoric, but there’s not much in the way of pro-gun choices. Proving once again that the Second Amendment isn’t a matter of partisan politics, the only Republican candidate used the event as an opportunity to push “laser branding” for tracing guns. But the award for the most creative statement goes to Democrat Michael Turner who wants to frame the fight for Philly to end preemption and disregard state gun laws as a “civil rights” debate. Using the term “civil rights” to trample civil rights, that’s a funny one.