Philadelphians Push For Gun Control In Harrisburg

[shoreman]

Philadelphians Push For Gun Control In Harrisburg

Brandy Bell
Reporting

http://cbs3.com/topstories/local_story_268173734.html

(CBS 3) PHILADELPHIA The push for tougher gun laws heads to Harrisburg Tuesday as hundreds supporters across the state board buses en to a rally. Among those attending the rally is a mother who lost her five-year-old daughter to a stray bullet only two days ago.

Alisha Corley's daughter Cashae Rivers was struck and killed by a stray bullet following a shootout on 34th and Huntington Streets Sunday morning. Lawmakers are holding a special session to address hand gun control.

The mourning mother is joining the crowd traveling to Harrisburg with a petition urging state legislators to allow for stricter gun legislation within the city.

"We need more laws in Philadelphia. We need more laws in Philadelphia. These guns gots to get off the streets," said Corley.

Limiting hand guns sales to one a month, banning military assault type weapons and requiring owners of guns that are lost or stolen to report them within 24 hours, are among items on a bill to before the Pennsylvania legislator.

Mayor Street will join other Philadelphians lobbying for tougher gun laws.

"Unless we take some significant steps to reduce the ease in which people get guns and the number of guns on the streets, we will continue to have these tragedies," said Mayor Street.

Men United for a Better Philadelphia walked more than 100 miles to Harrisburg and Mother United through Tragedy will carry petitions with thousands of signatures demanding the limit of gun sales.

"We need to have stricter gun laws," says Shirley Boggs with Mothers United through Tragedy.

Greg Isabella, owner of The Firing Line gun shop, feels existing laws are not being enforced.

"They will not enforce Act 15. And that's what the state's legislator has to look at, why the city will not enforce Act 15," said Isabella.

In a state full of hunters, gun control is not a popular issue. But with the murder rate climbing to 300, community activists say the time is now.

[cutty]

A year ago, I would have thought it would never have passed. Penn. has always been a good union state when it comes to these things. But the passed a no smokeing law in Philly. Who knows now.

[24thMED]

We've got all that shit in CA. The laws don't stop the guns. They should check with DC and Chicago. The crime in those cities actually went up back in the 80's when they passed strict gun bans. People are sheep, they think everybody obeys the laws. The ones doing the shooting don't abey the laws. Shirley needs to buy a weapon and start shooting back......

[shoreman]

Firearms owners go on the offensive
By Michael Vitez
Inquirer Staff Writer

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/states/pennsylvania/15616334.htm

The gun owners fired back yesterday.

About 300 of them from around Pennsylvania roamed the Capitol encouraging legislators to oppose any new laws limiting the right to own and bear arms.

They were steadfast: crime is Philadelphia's problem, caused by Philadelphians, and any new laws to restrict the sale of guns won't solve it.

The only solution, they said, is to crack down on criminals, enforce existing laws, and end what one gun supporter called "Philadelphia's catch and release program."

"It works with fish, but not with criminals," said Dennis Pavlik, director of legislative affairs for Firearms Owners Against Crime in Presto, Allegheny County.

"Tell these legislators we expect them to exercise their oath of office and uphold our freedoms," said Kim Stolfer, who organized yesterday's pro-gun effort, to his troops before they went to buttonhole legislators.

These folks, mostly from rural areas in central and western Pennsylvania, see gun rights as a bedrock constitutional issue.

And they came armed with reasons not to change things.

"The highest rate of crime occurs in cities with the toughest gun laws," said John Brinson, chairman of the Lehigh Valley Firearms Coalition. When you allow people to carry concealed weapons, crime goes down, because criminals don't know who's carrying a gun," said Mike Cancel of Washington, Pa.

He and others blamed Philadelphia for its problems and resented efforts to abate them by forcing stricter laws on the state. "It's their children that they didn't raise right, who don't know who their father is," said Cancel. "The children are out of control. We have tons of laws already. The laws are not being enforced."

The gun owners also said they don't accept the argument that gun restrictions would make the streets safer. Criminals, they said, would still have guns, and citizens wouldn't.

Cancel, 53, an engineer, contended that the Second Amendment is essential, that America is spiraling out of control, and that it is vital that citizens possess firearms to fight tyranny, foreign and domestic:

"The population has to have parity against the standing military, man for man."

Another gun owner wore a T-shirt: "The Second Amendment: the original homeland security."

Gun supporters, visiting legislative offices, found support for their arguments.

"You're preaching to the choir," said Rep. Dave Reed (R., Indiana). "I'm an NRA member. I'm already with you."

Rep. Jeff Pyle (R., Armstrong) greeted them warmly. "We just have this terrible habit of passing a law that already exists," he said. Pyle said the solution to crime in Philadelphia was not restricting guns, but increasing police.

Rep. Daryl Metcalfe (R., Butler) issued a statement opposing some of the main proposals being considered by the House Committee of the Whole, including limiting gun sales to one a month, and a ban on semiautomatic firearms. Metcalfe said guns were not the problem.

"This cultural problem is the breakdown of the family and the subsequent absence of positive parental influences and supervision in children's lives," he said. "... Absent fathers, financial hardship and lack of meaningful parental influence and availability in children's lives are a disastrous formula for social unrest and violence."

Stolfer, who said he was a former Marine, said he became a vocal gun-supporter after a school shooting in Stockton, Calif. He was outraged to find the shooter had been set free on a plea bargain.

"How many lives would have been spared if judges had done their jobs and enforced the laws on the books?" Stolfer, of Bridgeville in the Pittsburgh area, asked.

Sue and George Romanoff, who own a firearms store in Washington, Pa., don't deny that the streets might be safer if all guns were banned, but said the same would be true if alcohol or cars weren't allowed.

George Romanoff acknowledged Philadelphia's violence problem, but said, "I don't think they're attacking the problem. They're attacking the symptoms."

As a couple of thousand antigun activists held a prayer vigil and rally on the Capitol steps, gun supporters sported signs and T-shirts.

"If every one of these people took a gun home, and learned how to use it safely, crime would go way down in their neighborhoods," said Richard Mase of Lebanon, whose shirt said, "Tyranny Response Team."

Criminals, he said, are much more cautious when they know their victim could be armed.