Eric:
Good post. I am from Philly and never hear them point out the number of these straw purchases. I think pols just have to blame something and gun laws are convenient target.

It would be great is a high-profile, respected athlete or celeb would stand up and blame the thug culture as the main cause of the high murder rate.

Mr Galloway seems to have broken a raft of state and federal laws prior to shooting his girlfriend and, aparently, anyone within range. Perhaps we need to ask authorities why they failed to apprehend this criminal on those charges before we start to take guns from people who had nothing to do with Galloway's rampage

Once again, as Confucius taught, without rectification of names, there can be no good government. We must be ready to call a spade a spade. This is a cultural problem, no more no less. Guns themselves, in the hands of the civilized, are at worst neutral and at best a deterrent to crime.

It is the sociopathic, disfunctional minority which can't handle the gun. They lack the inner and social control to deal with modern technology. They are bereft of the basic civic virtues of discipline, community and respect for the law which make lawful gun ownership practicable.

Now the mystery from this is that the savages are themselves the threat which makes the arming of civil society necessary. I am an armed Philadelphinn. I do not go to church in this town without something in my pocket. It might be a .45 or .44, but at the very least a .32 if I am dressed lightly. It is a strange way to live, scoping the treeline as one prepares to exit a car or storefront, or pausing before entering a covenience store to see if all is in order.

Without this protection, I would long ago have joined the many friends and relatives who have already hitched up their wagons and trekked forth. Thus the gun makes life in the city barely possible.

There is a legitimate concern about bad guys legally buying guns and then selling them illegally to other bad guys, but the answer isn't to stop good guys from buying guns. All legal handgun purchases are recorded and a background check performed. Perhaps a true commonsense approach would set trip wires that prompt an investigation. I daresay the number of weapon purchases required to produce a turnoner rate at which reselling on the black market becomes profitable is significantly higher than the purchase rate of even the most ardent collector. In other words, have the cops do their job instead of relying upon a magic law that makes it unnecessary.

Is it just me, or does that cartoon fail to make any sense whatsoever?

I mean, the point of a good political cartoon is, through the use of dramatic irony, to take a statement that the figure in question would actually /say/ and present it in such a manner that it's meaning is opposite that intended. For this to work, the statement has to actually be believable in the context presented.

In the context presented, "This is dangerous! If it keeps up people will try to do something about it!" is both counter-productive to the message of the cartoon and a complete non-sequitur. The word "this" has no obvious reference. (Is the gunman implying that his own act of waving guns around is dangerous? It's obviously the authors intended meaning, but it's not something the gunman would say.) Further, because the statement is so completely out of character, any sense of dramatic irony is lost; the cartoon is simply unbelievable, and thus utterly fails to convey whatever message it is trying to get across.

Perhaps if the gunman had shouted something regarding his right to self-defense while waving a gun over a pile of corpses the cartoon would have actually served its purpose. As it stands, I can only consider it to be the work of another brain-dead wannabe artist hired solely because his politics support the prevailing view of the editors.

The 133 figure sounds like a lot although it seems to me Phillies population is in the 4-6 million range, but this construction "where gunfire has claimed 133 lives this year," is immediately suspect. How many of these are shot by police? Gotta be a good few, no? How many are self-defense? Unimportant? Of course it is to the anti-gunners who think thieves, rapist and Iranian dictators are all equally misunderstood Quakers beneath the skin and only the nasty NRA, viciously expecting the Constitution to still be in force after all these years, baits these gentle souls to violence.

I wait with bated breath for the day when the societal nannies have gotten their way and eliminated guns in America, and are now picketing outside a Husqvarna plant after a homocidal psychopath goes on a particularly nasty killing spree with a chainsaw. One that could've been easily ended by any citizen with decent aim and a handgun.

If we got rid of drugs there would be no gun problem.

If ew got rid of guns there would be no drug problem.

I know. Let's get rid of both.

Demon drugs. Demon guns. I see a connection.

If we stopped providing price supports for violent criminals (drug prohibition) perhaps we would have fewer violent criminals.

We do know that violence went down when Alcohol Prohibition ended.

I will start taking gun control advocates seriously when they also acknowledge criminals as equally dangerous as the guns they use. Thus, I am sure that these well-meaning persons will agree that such criminals are domestic terrorists, and those involved in drugs are also linked (in some way) with international drug rings - themselves terrorist organizations. Therefore said criminals get a one-way ticket to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba - never to be seen or heard from again. Problem solved. Or... are they not really serious about stopping crime? SURELY - they are not suggesting weak measures - why that is tantamount to condemning poor, often minority, persons to a death by criminals - why...that is RACISM! for SHAME!!!!

Eric wrote: "I can't prove my suspicions, but I do think that the push to blame guns is related to the chronic inability of the legal system to put such guys away."

I was called up for Jury Duty last week. The defendant had already pled guilty to Aggravated Robbery with a Deadly Weapon. During voir dire we were instructed that we would be deciding the sentence based on testimony and evidence presented over the next two or three days. After nearly two hours of questions to individual potential jurors, we were told that the punishment could go from probation to 99 years. When asked if anyone had a problem with that, I spoke up. I said that I did not think probation was an appropriate punishment since he'd already admitted guilt to a first degree felony...that he should do jail time. When a brief recess was called a few minutes later, I was called to the bench and dismissed by the judge. The defense attorney didn't even have a chance to object to my presence on the prospective jury.

I live in a town that is right outside of Philly, but is a separate county altogether. I can testify that our local law enforcement, including judges, brag about how many people they put behind bars who are wandering the streets despite being charged with multiple crimes (and out on bond) in Philadelphia. It's a definite selling point for my neighborhood.

The city has a huge crime problem. The city is not serious about taking guns away from people who have them illegally, nor in locking up people who have committed crimes. It is not surprising that Lancaster is seeing the results.

Yet another reason why I won't allow the Inquirer or the Philly Daily News into my home. If you think that cartoon was disgusting, you should see the anti-Semitic filth they have printed idn the past.

Not that I disagree with a word you've said, it bears pointing out that Lancaster has some pretty scary inner city areas - it's not just rolling hills and Amish farmers.