Philadelphia – Page 9 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Philly Bucks Preemption Again

I’ve been amiss in covering what the Philadelphia City Council is doing, mostly because this comedy routine is getting boring. But here it is:

The bill, introduced by Councilman Darrell Clarke, would eliminate the so-called “Florida loophole,” which allows owners here to obtain nonresident licenses through the mail, even without a Pennsylvania permit.

At this point I don’t even really want NRA wasting money to fight this. They would just be pissing money away. Let them try to enforce it, and then we’ll hit the city with a huge civil rights lawsuit. Any enforcement of this would be under color of law, qualified immunity wouldn’t apply because this is established precedent. A suit under Section 1983 would allow any police brass ordering enforcement of this to be sued in their personal capacity as well. Pretty clearly the city has no regard for its street officers who will follow the orders, because they can also be sued personally for acting under color of law.

Let them pass this crap if it makes them feel better. Even someone as anti-gun as Lynne Abraham knew better than to suggest she would ever enforce this nonsense. Is Seth Williams this smart? We’ll see. But my money would be that this gets signed into law and never enforced. It’s just grandstanding on the part of Councilman Darrell Clarke and the rest of City Council.

A Shame

Not much information on this story, but it looks like a retired cop and gun collector died, with no one to take care of the estate. The local criminal population quickly moved in and started stealing from the collection. Once guns started showing up in traces, the police moved in on the abandoned property.

The real shame of it is, this guy pretty clearly was quite a collector, and you an guarantee each and every one of those firearms is now going to be destroyed. If there really are Title II firearms among the collection, as the article says, they will be lost forever to the civilian market. I would be surprised if there are not also historical pieces that will be lost.

Joe Grace Looking To Run for City Council

Apparently he’s no longer heading up CeaseFire PA, apparently running against Councilman DiCicco’s record, which includes taking of a nearly half a million dollar retirement package and then not retiring. Gotta love Philly politicians. I’m glad Grace is done with CeaseFire PA. He was an effective leader for them, and a good spokesman, and with him moving on I suspect they will go back to being rudderless and impotent.

Problems Prosecuting Gun Crimes

The Philadelphia Inquirer yesterdayÂ ran a fairly lengthy and detailed piece that illustrates the problems with prosecuting gun crimes in the city. It speaks of the head of Philadelphia’s Gun Court, Judge Paula Patrick. I don’t honestly have enough information on these cases to say whether or not Judge Patrick is insufferably soft on criminals, or is just a stickler for civil liberties and for the police following the law.

It does seem odd though that Pennsylvania would have a rule on “forced abandonment.” Basically, under federal search and seizure law, if a suspect runs from police and tosses a gun, the gun is admissible. Apparently in Pennsylvania, it’s not. It’s one thing if police unlawfully search someone. I can see the civil liberties implications of that. But if you willfully toss something? Is that even a search at this point? It’s hard to see how it could be incident to an unlawful seizure since someone running isn’t exactly seized.

We pay a price for civil liberties. What angers me is that the same people, and I agree with them, that believe in strong Fourth Amendment protections, don’t feel the need to protect the Second Amendment.

Philadelphia Bucking Preemption Yet Again

This time they are going to refuse to recognize Florida licenses for residents unless the person also holds a Pennsylvania license.

The NRA has in the past sued over the cityâ€™s ability to pass its own gun legislation.Â Clarke joked about that likelihood, telling Gillison, â€œLook forward to being with you in court again.â€

At this point they know it’s illegal, they are just doing it to be pricks. Hopefully we can get real teeth to preemption so we can penalize the city for doing crap like this. I’d settle for an unambiguous preemption statute, with state funding cut for cities who have gun laws on the books. I don’t even care if they aren’t enforced, time to remove them. This crap has to stop, and stop now.

Handel’s Messiah

Thanks to Tam for this flash choir video. One of the treasures of Philadelphia is that it’s home to the world’s largest musical instrument, the Wanamaker Organ. I’ve been remiss in not taking Bitter into the city to hear one of the daily Organ Concerts that treat the shoppers of ~~John Wanamaker’s~~ ~~Hecht’s~~ ~~Lord & Taylor~~, Macy’s:

Philadelphia isn’t blessed with much, but the Wanamaker Organ is one of them. Our symphony orchestra and other performing arts groups are also. This flash choir was put on by the Opera Company of Philadelphia. Performing arts groups, particular opera companies, struggle to find supporters. I worry that eventually the Wanamaker Organ is going bye bye, along with most of the city’s arts community because they aren’t finding enough interest to keep them going.

Hope and Change Visualized

First, we had hope, and it looked like this:

Last night the voters of the Philadelphia Suburbs voted for change:

This looks more like the map I grew up with. I would note that each of those blue going red districts was an anti-gun Democrat being replaced by a pro-gun Republican. In addition, the Republican seats we held in the suburbs are solid. Allyson Schwartz, who’s district includes Philadelphia and heads out into Montgomery County, is the only gun hater left in the Philly suburbs. And this is where Bloomberg made his stand, dumped big money, and lost just as big. They tried to make gun control an issue and roundly lost.

UPDATE: That finger of blue coming down out of Berks County in the Northwest corner of this map? That’s Tim Holden’s district. Holden voted against Pelosi every step of the way, ran as a conservative rather than a Democrat, and carried an NRA endorsement. He’s a DINO.

Philly Area Not Doing so Well

I’m not surprised we’ve lost so many jobs, considering what an awful place Pennsylvania is to do business. We have among the highest corporate tax rates in the country, and our government is increasingly looking for ways to make it even worse. If I were going to start a business, I’d go to an up and coming market. This area has been my home all my life, but it has no future as long as the people keep sending politicians to Harrisburg that make anti-business policy choices, and vote for bloated an expensive government. And this is just the ‘burbs I’m talking about. The City of Philadelphia is a basket case in its own right, and beginning to rival such stellar cities as Detroit and Baltimore in sheer craptitude.

The only thing we have going for us is housing prices haven’t taken as bad a beating as other markets, because we never bubbled very much since even in good times no one wants to live here.

Bryan Lentz Gets His Poster Child

I’m sure Lentz, who is running for Sestak’s old seat in Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District, thinks this murder in Philadelphia shows the need to remove the so-called “Florida Loophole,” but the reality is it’s another example of the City of Philadelphia’s utter failure to prosecute criminals. Make no mistake, Marqus Hill is not the kind of person who should possess, much less carry a gun. But in this country, we can’t deprive people of rights without due process, and this scumbag, thanks to the City, never got the process he was most decidedly due.

NBC 10 is also reporting on this, and notes that he was acquitted of attempted murder. This is not true. I have his record here. In 2005, he was arrested for attempted murder, aggravated assault, terroristic threats, carrying firearms without a license, simple, assault and reckless endangerment. All these, save terroristic threats, are listed as being “Held for Court,” meaning that the City District Attorney has still not brought an “Information.” In other words, he’s had a preliminary hearing, and a judge has determined there’s sufficient evidence to hold the matter, and await the prosecutors office to bring formal charges. Except the City has yet to bring charges on the matter.

Not only that, but in 2008, as they mention, he assaulted a police officer, which is aggravated assault in Pennsylvania, a felony. That charge was dismissed for lack of evidence. He was also charged with Simple Assault, resisting arrest, and disorderly conduct for the same incident. He was found guilty of disorderly conduct, and beat the other charges. One wonders how you can have lack of evidence for such a charge, since you would imagine all it would take is a cop saying, “Yes, he punched me while I was trying to arrest him,” but that’s what happened.

In short the city missed one clear, blatant opportunity to make this guy a prohibited person, and appears to have missed a second opportunity in 2008. Florida does a background check on every applicant, but that requires that the person actually be convicted of something. Philadelphia, with Brian Lentz’s help, is successfully deflecting blame for their own failings onto the backs of law abiding gun owners, rather than addressing the real problem, which is the City’s inability or unwillingness to get tough on criminals. Marqus Hill is a poster boy alright, but not for changing our guns laws.

Philadelphia Abusing Florida Permit Holders

Many thanks to the blog Vox Michaeli for covering this issue, which I didn’t notice on my vacation. The Philadelphia Daily News, to its credit, is covering the civil rights abuses of the City of Philadelphia on holders of Licenses to Carry from the State of Florida, which are legally recognized as valid by Pennsylvania, no matter the residency of the holder. The City confirms it’s handling eight, get that, eight civil rights suits on this issue. How many people have they harassed that haven’t sued:

Despite following the law, all of the men said that they were treated like criminals by city cops who either ignored their rights or didn’t know the laws.

Lt. Fran Healy, special adviser to the police commissioner, acknowledged that some city cops apparently are unfamiliar with some concealed-carry permits. But he said that it’s better for cops to “err on the side of caution.”

It’s time to get them familiar, because what they are doing is illegal, and it opens up the city, and its officers, to expensive civil rights lawsuits.Â I want the state to do more about this, not reward the city for this behavior by passing Lentz’s law. They need to follow the law. If they won’t follow the law, the state needs to make consequences for refusing to do so. I should note that one of these individuals got a Florida license because he was denied for unpaid parking tickets. That’s not a valid reason. We need to make some changes to the law, but not what Rep. Lentz has in mind.