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In case you need a reminder of the Democratic Party’s priorities when it comes to gun control, Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney is happy to offer one.
Earlier this month, an argument between three men turned into a shootout. Gregory Jackson was shot and killed by Micah Towns after Jackson had opened fire. The third man, Rashaan Vereen, was arrested, as officers believe he picked up Jackson’s gun after he had been killed and handed it to another man who fled the scene. A fourth man, Quran Garner, was arrested after firing into a crowd near the fight.
However, Towns was not arrested. Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner determined that Towns had acted in self-defense after he had been shot by Jackson. Towns was legally allowed to carry a firearm (Jackson had a gun permit as well, though only because of a clerical error). According to Philadelphia law enforcement officials, Towns was in a verbal argument, was shot by the man he was arguing with, then shot and killed his assailant.
This should result in jail time for Towns because “anybody who fired a gun that day should be locked up,” according to Kenney. Towns was only defending himself after being shot, but, according to Kenney, he committed the crime of not walking away from an argument. “There should be some price, some inconvenience, for that person who could have walked away, could have continued walking away, but came back and reignited the situation,” Kenney said.
Krasner’s office, appropriately, said, “We cannot invent crimes that don’t exist and facts that aren’t true.” But Kenney’s impulse to punish the legal gun owner who acted in self-defense after being shot reflects the Democratic Party’s broader issue on gun control. Democratic politicians target law-abiding gun owners with their gun control proposals and rhetoric.
When Democrats demand universal background checks, they ignore that over 90% of gun sales involve a background check and that only 8% of criminals who use a firearm in a crime acquire it from a friend or family member. When Democrats demand arbitrary “assault weapons” bans, law-abiding gun owners comply while criminals simply alter their rifles in violation of the law. Kenney, the mayor of the country’s sixth-largest city, holds to those same Democratic talking points while also supporting soft-on-crime policies that would help police identify criminals in possession of illegal firearms.
With Philadelphia coming off a record year in homicides, Kenney wants to treat self-defense as a criminal act. Punishing people for defending themselves will only leave the safety of law-abiding citizens in the hands of the criminals who set out to hurt them, yet that is precisely what Kenney is advocating. It is the natural outgrowth of the Democratic Party treating gun owners as a problem while increasingly viewing criminals as victims.
