Last year, Philadelphia had 499 homicides. The city topped 400 homicides for this year on Sept. 27. A week later, a man shot and killed an employee of Jefferson Hospital inside the hospital. The city is on its way to shattering its previous record of 500 homicides, set in 1990.
Philadelphia is riding a murder wave. So what is Mayor Jim Kenney’s response to all this?
When I contacted the mayor’s office asking for comment, I got back a boilerplate statement calling for “common-sense gun laws.”
“This is yet another tragic example of weaponry that is far too powerful being in the hands of people who shouldn’t have access to them,” Kenney said in a press release provided to me by the mayor’s office. “Once again, this incident demonstrates why we need common-sense gun laws to stop these tragedies that have become all too frequent.”
This comment is exceptionally vague and not at all helpful in resolving the gun crime plaguing the city. “Common-sense gun laws,” whatever that even means, have nothing to do with most gun crime.
I followed up, asking how the laws Kenney is recommending would have stopped what occurred Sunday night or any of the 400 other murders in the city. “What do such laws entail?” I asked. “Furthermore, how would the law you are describing here [have] prevented what happened on Sunday? What specifically in the law you are mentioning would have caused this person not to have a gun and kill someone?”
After two emails and nearly two days to respond, Kevin Lessard, acting communications director, Office of the Mayor, wrote me this:
“The Administration supports legislation such as universal background checks and lost and stolen gun reporting laws. Keeping weapons designed for war off our streets where children play and friends and families gather is critical. At the same time, we have fought against the State’s preemption laws which prevent the City from passing or enforcing almost any ordinances to address gun violence.”
These are all empty words. Pennsylvania already has a background check system for all legal firearm purchases. That isn’t the issue at all.
“As we’ve shared previously, the City is acting with urgency to invest in anti-violence initiatives that both address the immediate crisis and tackle the systemic, root causes of violence,” the mayor’s statement said. “A record $155 million will be invested to reduce and prevent violence this year alone, which doesn’t even include funding for traditional policing.”
“I want all residents to know that our administration takes this crisis very seriously and we’re acting with urgency to reduce violence through many means,” Kenney said in a press release. “Our Administration is working tirelessly in response to the national public health emergency that gun violence presents.”
Now, consider for a moment the movement in the city to ban minor traffic violations such as “driving with a broken headlight, a loud muffler, or in an unregistered car.” Under the guidance of Soros-funded District Attorney Larry Krasner, the city wants to remove laws that prevent such stops. Yet, just last night, a captain of the Philadelphia Police Department tweeted that he pulled over a vehicle with an expired license plate. The driver of the car had a prior arrest for carrying a firearm illegally in Philadelphia. He was also in possession of the illegally owned firearm, as pictured in the tweet.
This is a great example of how criminals are taken off the street — and Mayor Kenney wants to stop the police from doing it. He wants to let criminals like this one go free with their guns, and then he wonders why there’s so much crime in his city.
Kenney’s administration has prioritized defending criminals instead of protecting the innocent. He talks of millions spent on “initiatives” that will not accomplish anything and tries to stop what actually works in preventing gun crime — namely, taking criminals off the streets.
Many of the guns being used in Philadelphia’s murder spree are obtained illegally. The people using them are already breaking the law — commonsense or not, new laws that criminals also won’t follow will not do anything to stop them.
This is why the mayor’s office was unable to provide a coherent answer. Instead of enforcing laws that already work, the city wants to waste millions of taxpayer dollars on programs that will accomplish nothing.
“It does include $22 million for the newly created Anti-Violence Community Expansion Grant program which will help give community organizations resources and capacity building support soon,” the mayor’s statement said. “This won’t solve our immediate crisis today, but I assure Philadelphians that many other efforts are underway with our local, state and federal partners.”
A week ago, I contacted Lessard again and asked him, “What specific part of Kenney’s commonsense laws would have been applicable in the Jefferson Hospital shooting that would have prevented the incident from happening?” He has yet to respond, but the fact is, nothing in the millions of dollars in useless initiatives that Kenney is offering will ever solve the crisis the city is facing.
The only answer is to hold criminals accountable, and that would mean throwing Krasner and Kenney out of office.
