Today's Philadelphia Inquirer has a front page story about a Chinese store owner who was murdered by neighborhood kids.

While this was an otherwise well-researched story, for some reason the Inquirer left Commissioner Sylvester Johnson out, despite the fact that he appears to have been directly in charge the whole time at the crime scene. I say "well researched" because the Inquirer wouldn't let the perfectly competent Joseph Gambardello write the story alone. Instead, they have added two co-authors, including the Inquirer's visiting Chinese intern Lou Yi whose reportorial expertise seems to be invoked when reports touch on Asian cultural issues.

I'll return to the Inquirer, but I noticed that a Fox News story does quote Philadelphia's Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson, who once again seems to think the issue involves guns:

"It's another example of guns and the person who doesn't want to go out there and work for his money, thinks the way to get it is to rob somebody," said Philadelphia Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson.

The owner was shot in the chest. His wife and daughter were there when it happened and were able to identify the gunman.

"This male had robbed them previously about a year ago," said Commissioner Johnson.

Guns always get the blame in cases like this, and it's easy to see why. It just doesn't seem right to blame a "child." The victim's family seems to understand this intuitively, for the Inquirer quotes the slain grocer's family as giving up on Philadelphia, presumably because there isn't enough gun control:

The Lu family, meanwhile, has given up on the city and plans to move to New York.

"I know Philadelphia is not safe. But I have never imagined this tragedy . . . could happen to my family. It is a nightmare," Lu LiXia said.

"Everybody's got guns in all of the neighborhood," she said. "We can't stay anymore. If we came back, next time it could be me or my mom. American law is too good to the juveniles. . . . They should do something about gun control."

It was a crime for the shooter to have the gun.

Exactly what kind of gun control is supposed to work in cases like this, where kids in their mid teens don't want to go out and work for a living and for all I know aren't buckling down in school? Actually, I can't be sure about the latter, as it's speculation on my part. It is possible that the shooter might have been an honor student with a perfect attendance record.

Certainly, his family and neighbors (notwithstanding his previous armed robbery) seem to think he's a good kid, and that the crime is a tragedy for both "sides":

Yesterday afternoon, Canady's mother, Camilla Brown, sat on the front porch of the family house on tree-lined Carver Street, two blocks from Lu Grocery.

"My sympathy goes out to the family," she said. "I feel grief and remorse. It's a tragedy on both sides. They lost their loved one and . . . I don't know."

A neighbor, block captain Dinette Brown, described Canady as a good kid who helped to sweep the street during neighborhood cleanups and wanted to play football.

"He was always respectful to me," she said. "He helped me carry my groceries. . . . You raise your children the best you can, but there's peer pressure out here. . . . I'm just as shocked as everybody else.

"He had dreams like everyone else," she said. "Nobody wants to be a robber or a killer."

While the shooter's character is described as good, neighbors don't seem so sure about the victim of the slaying, who now stands accused of, well, racism:

Like some other residents, she expressed some discomfort with Lu Jiaxing, saying she thought he viewed black people with suspicion. Other residents, though, said Lu made a point of knowing his customers so well that he knew what each typically bought at the store.

"About two months ago, when it got dark at about 6 or 7 p.m., he started closing down and selling food through a slot," Brown said. "I did have a problem with that. But he did seem to be a decent man. Once, I lost my ... card in his ATM and he went out of his way to get it back for me the next day."

Another neighbor is quoted as being upset by the victim's wife dismantling a makeshift "memorial" to her husband:

Another neighborhood resident, Edward Molizone, 74, touched on the suspicion that often exists between black residents and Asian merchants.

"A lot of blacks don't go to the Chinese store because they feel the Chinese think they steal from them," he said. "I don't have a complex about that."

But Molizone said that he was disturbed when he heard that Lu's wife dismantled a makeshift memorial to her husband created by neighborhood residents.

"I was hurt this morning when she took all the teddy bears and put them in the trash," he said.

I don't know anymore, but it strikes me that if anyone deserves the benefit of the doubt on sensitivity here, it ought to be the victims. In that regard, the Inquirer touches on something that must be really painful for the daughter to contemplate. When last year's robbery charges were thrown out, it may have been because Philadelphia bureaucrats didn't make much of an effort to help her testify:

Lu LiXia recalled her father's last minutes.

She was upstairs in the family's apartment when she said she heard her father shouting and ran to find him struggling with two masked robbers.

"I joined the fighting and we pulled off their masks. I saw that they were customers who came to buy snacks and drinks almost every day," Lu LiXia said.

Police said the Lus first forced Canady out the door, followed by White. But instead of running, one of them - detectives believe it was Canady - fired twice into the open door, hitting Lu in the chest before fleeing.

Lu LiXia also recognized Canady as the youth who tried to rob the store in November with what officials said was an inoperable BB gun.

Canady originally was charged as an adult, but the case was transferred to Family Court, where a judge dismissed the charges for lack of evidence.

Lu LiXia recalled answering a subpoena and waiting for hours at Family Court before officials told her to go home. But when she apparently did not appear for a subsequent hearing, the charges were dismissed.

As to Commissioner Johnson, he says he doesn't know:

As far as the teen allegedly robbing the place before, Johnson would only say they arrested the teen for it and they found a gun but he doesn't know what happened in court.

Like many other crimes, this one could have been prevented had the criminal justice system simply done its job properly in the first place. I keep reading about crime after crime committed by released criminals. In Connecticut, a pair of recently paroled convicts are accused of....

...breaking into the suburban Cheshire home of Dr. William Petit Jr. on July 23, holding his wife and two daughters hostage and terrorizing them for nearly six hours.

Police say the pair raped and strangled the doctor's 48-year-old wife Jennifer Hawke-Petit. The couple's daughters, Hayley Petit, 18, and Michaela Petit, 11, were tied to their beds and the youngest was raped before the men poured gasoline around their beds and set fire to the family home, according to police.

Likewise, there will be no claim of good-man-led-astray-by-uncontrolled-guns in this murder case:

A pregnant South Jersey woman who was run down by an enraged motorist's SUV as her horrified husband watched has died of her injuries, police said.

Rosa Maguire, 27, received severe brain injuries when she was struck Aug. 1 by an SUV driven by a man who had been freed on bail the day before.

The Cumberland County woman, who was three months pregnant, died Thursday night in Atlantic City at AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center, authorities said.

"It looks like the child was a victim as well," said Capt. Al Della Fave, spokesman for the New Jersey State Police. A hospital spokesman said he could not comment because of a request for privacy from the Maguire family.

Jack Yator, 22, of Port Norris, was charged with one count of murder and other offenses yesterday by Cumberland County Prosecutor Ronald J. Casella. Other charges may be filed. Police said Yator affiliates with members of the violent Bloods gang.

That's because guns make good people go bad and break the gun control laws which don't work because the guns are so awful they make the good people on parole for committing crimes they didn't want to commit go out and break the laws against having guns -- even though they don't want to do that either. This means that we need to make it illegal for good people to have guns! That way, everyone who has a gun will be automatically guilty of a gun crime (and bad), and the good people who don't have guns can join forces to defeat the common enemy of 200-plus million guns.

As for me, I just keep having a mental stumbling block.

Why can't I understand that guns are way more evil than criminals?