Category: Philadelphia

Mayor Michael Nutter:

“I looked him dead in the eye when he came in and told him how disappointed I was in him.”

Oh dear.  So Mayor Squidward is “disappointed” in a cop killer, and I, an NRA member, am scum of the earth.  Surely the Mayor’s moral compass is as true as any!

A retired Philadelphia Police officer takes the city politicians to task:

Yet Mayor Nutter repeats the usual sophistry about guns. Hizzoner said, “That officer was assassinated on the streets of Philadelphia. There was nothing that could have protected him – that weapon penetrates vehicles.”

His statement illustrates why our elected representatives are unable to reduce violent crime.

The mayor’s lack of knowledge of weaponry notwithstanding, there is one patently obvious policy that definitely would have protected the officer.

If Levon Warner had served his full sentence, he would’ve been in prison until 2012. He could not have committed any crime in 2008.

If Howard Cain had served his full sentence, he would’ve been in prison to 2052. He would not have murdered anyone in 2008.

If Eric Floyd had served his full sentence, he’d have been in jail, not robbing banks, in 2008.

But all three served less than the max and committed more violent crime. This time a cop ended up dead. Why isn’t the mayor addressing this more easily remedied and more salient issue?

Read the whole thing.  The Mayor isn’t addressing the issue because we can’t have a real, public discussion about the dreaded topic of personal and civic responsibility; something that’s sorely absent in many of the city’s worst neighborhoods.  It would take real leadership to address it, and the voters of that city aren’t going to get it from its Democratic machine.

From Rightwingprof, talking to Jill Porter who you might remember from two days ago:

Look, idiot, here in central Pennsylvania, we have lots and lots of guns, and very little crime, absolutely none compared to you. Why is that? Don’t try to answer: That’s what is known as a rhetorical question.

Here’s why. We. Don’t. Tolerate. Crimimals.

You worship criminals. You bow and scrape at the mere mention of Mumia’s name. You elect liberals who accommodate criminals at every opportunity, letting them go free on minimal bail or OR, putting them in halfway houses, slapping them on the wrists, and sending them to group therapy. And what do they do? Why, they commit more crime as soon as they get the opportunity, and they will continue to do so as long as you elect morons who put them back out on the street.

This is something the Philadelphia chattering classes absolutely don’t understand.  They, in fact, refuse to understand it.

Apparently all the proceeds from sales today at Geno’s Steaks will be going to the Steven Liczbinski Family Memorial Fund.  Joey Vento is a man who still cares about his city, even though its politicians put him through the ringer.

Nabbed. Good news, though there is the unfortunate aspect of this, that he didn’t offer the opportunity to be sent to join his co-conspirator.

He’s calling for a renewal of the assault weapons ban:

Rendell says the gun that cut down Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski (see related story) was a Chinese assault weapon, and he says that there used to be a ban on importing assault weapons:

“And yet in 2004, the Congress of the United States — often some of the very same congressmen who would come and attend ceremonies like this — let the assault weapons ban lapse.”

The governor acknowledged that the gun that killed Liczbinski was brought into the country “well before that action,” but says it’s symptomatic of the refusal of lawmakers to provide “maximum protection” to law enforcement:

“If we really want to pay honor and tribute to the memory of those 703 police officers who have given their lives, we will suck it in, do the right thing, and pass laws that would give our police officers out on the street, protecting us every day, the maximum amount of protection we can.”

I don’t expect much out of the city politicians, but I would have expected the governor to show some class and not jump on the bandwagon of exploiting this for political gain.  Also more “Kill a cop, we’ll blame something other than the criminal.”, and this time from our governor.

From a comment to this Philadelphia Daily News article:

Good Luck Nutter. You can not use reason when you try to reason with those inbred NRA morons. What he should do is arrange for a bus to go to the cow pastures of Central PA and pick up all those NRA nuts and bring them to Philly. Let them try to survive one night on the streets here and see if they still want to block the assault weapon ban.

They would survive.  Not only would they survive if they were relocated, but Philadelphia would very quickly have a lower crime rate, because those people would not tolerate the levels of crime that goes on in these high crime neighborhoods in the city.  If you want to see what happens when you drop a gun nut into the middle of an inner city, take a look at Pro-Gun Progressive.

It’s not the geography that’s the issue.  North Philadelphia is not destined to be a hell hole.  It’s a hell hole because the streets are ruled by thugs.  But getting rid of the thugs is going to entail working with the police, and electing judges willing to put the criminals in jail for a long time.  The rural parts of this state are virtually crime free, but they are like that because the people there would not tolerate the levels of crime in their neighborhoods that people in north Philadelphia tolerate.  I’m reluctant to blame the povery too, because there are parts of this state that are definitely struggling with poverty and lack of opportunity that don’t have a fraction of the crime Philadelphia does.  Philadelphians have spent entirely too long allowing their politicians to feed them excuses for why the crime is so high.  Maybe when they stop buying it, they’ll demand something actually be done about it.