It's not every day that an editorial has a picture of a person, but this one does.

While it is normally a matter of indifference to me what a criminal suspect looks like, it obviously matters to the Inquirer, for the editorial (titled "Wage war on causes") begins with a reference to the self-confessed cop killer's "baby face":

A police officer has been murdered, gunned down in the line of duty, leaving behind a grieving wife and three fatherless children.

The last thing most Philadelphians want to hear is a discussion of the social conditions that create men like the baby-faced suspect alleged to have shot Officer Chuck Cassidy during a doughnut shop robbery.

But if this city is going to prevent the murders of more officers (four others have been wounded by gunfire since Oct. 28); if this city is ever going to become safer for anyone who wants to buy a doughnut, or walk to school, or simply watch the world through a window of her home - then it has to have this discussion.

First, there must be an acknowledgment that violent crimes are a reflection of the violence we see in too many other aspects of our daily lives.

It's the new normal. Just check out TV, radio and film. There's even a commercial in which "moms" want to "whack" the Burger King king. Yeah, that's funny. Don't like the king? Go Tony Soprano on him.

Philadelphia is about to get a new mayor and police commissioner who promise to be aggressive in ferreting out and arresting criminals. But that's the easy part. Much tougher is preventing crime from occurring in the first place. Retiring Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson has said that again and again.

To reduce crime, especially violent crime, you must address the factors that produce it, including unemployment, poverty and bad schools. There's plenty of each in any big city in America. But in all of the Democratic and Republican presidential debates, have you heard anyone detail a cohesive national urban policy aimed at these issues?

Studies have shown that teenagers who have received high-quality education, beginning in preschool, are less likely to be arrested for violent crimes. Yet urban schools continue to be underfunded - in Philadelphia and elsewhere.

The result is high dropout rates that produce the jobless young men who end up committing crimes and serving time in prison. And prison is the worst place for many of them. They're not rehabilitated; they're turned into hardened felons who are even more likely to commit violent crimes when they get out.

And they do get out, almost all of them, eventually. Uneducated, and likely to have a drug habit, they become predators who rob doughnut shops and shoot police officers who get in the way.

Think about that statement in light of police statistics showing that 80% of Philadelphia's shootings involve previously convicted criminals. Presumably, if they were behind bars the shootings would not have occurred. Doesn't saying they all get out beg the question of whether keeping them in would decrease crime?

No. Paradoxically, the Inquirer says that locking them up only "delays" crime:

When is America going to learn that warehousing prisoners only delays crime, it doesn't stop it? When is it going to make adequate funding of schools a top priority? What good is waging a worldwide war against terrorism when the terror outside our doors is scarier? The violence won't stop until we take a good look at ourselves.

The baby faced cop killer really would have been good, but "we" made him bad with all the awful television programs, bad schools, and a fictitious Burger King king being whacked by moms.

I don't watch much television so I hadn't been aware of that latest shocking development until I read the editorial. In the old days I'd have probably taken the Inquirer at its word (at least for the sake of argument). Please believe me when I say that the last thing I want to have to do is turn on the television and watch carefully for offensive Burger King commercials. Writing this essay is enough of a pain in the ass as it is, but being forced to watch commercials? That is too much.

Fortunately, I don't have to. Like many offensive and dangerous things, the "Hit Moms Burger King Commercial" can be watched at any time on YouTube!

I try to be thorough, so I watched it carefully in its entirety. Not once but twice. It is obvious comedy; a harmless, even cute parody of countless mob films.

Honestly, I am trying to give the Inquirer the benefit of the doubt here, but what can they be thinking? Does anyone seriously believe that a silly commercial skit like that could in any way -- even remotely -- contribute to a cold-blooded murder of a police officer? I mean, I'm accustomed to crazed conspiracy theories and everything, but if someone told me this with a straight face I'd wonder what they were on.

The climate of Burger King violence theory aside, I do think the Philadelphia school system is an atrocity, and I've written numerous blog posts about it. I have no argument whatsoever with improving education, and I'd support a major overhaul from top to bottom. But is a poor education really to blame for John Lewis? Let's assume that John Lewis got a crummy education. I agree that it's awful that anyone should get a crummy education, because education is one of the things that tax dollars are supposed to pay for. But thousands and thousands of Philadelphia kids go to the same schools, and how many of them shoot police officers? Was John Lewis forced by society to drop out of school in the first place? Isn't individual motivation a factor in education?

To be fair, the Inquirer also blames unemployment and poverty in addition to bad schools. While the reporting about John Lewis's family situation is a bit scanty, what is known is that his mother works as a corrections officer, and that he appears to be her only child. He's 21 and she's 37, so it's more than likely his father committed a crime in helping to create him (unless he was a paid sperm donor, which I doubt). Whether babies born to teen mothers are more likely to become criminals, I don't know, but I think I've seen studies somewhere, and I suspect that there's at least as much of a correlation there as with a poor education; maybe more. You'd think teen pregnancy (perhaps out of wedlock birth, if that's the case here) might be worth a mention in the Inquirer's litany of "social conditions that create men like the baby-faced suspect."

But even if we put this aside, it does appear that the mother was gainfully employed in a law enforcement job, which means she knows right from wrong. Whether she was able to impart this to her only son, I am not sure. But frankly, I'm not seeing poverty as a factor. As to unemployment, well, I admit, there aren't a whole lot of jobs for drug-addicted high school dropouts, but he seems to have found jobs anyway:

Earlier this year, Lewis worked at two other Dunkin' Donuts locations - at Germantown and Erie Avenues, and on Roosevelt Boulevard near Rising Sun Avenue.

"He was nice," said Kiani Clark, 20, a cashier at the Roosevelt location.

"He was polite. He was happy he had just had a baby," she said while ringing up customers.

"We were all in shock," said Megan Chin, the manager.

Lewis was let go a few months ago for unspecified reasons, said Sofia Gonzalez, 23, a co-worker who has known Lewis since they were schoolmates at Olney High School.

"I believe it was money problems that pushed him over the edge," said Gonzalez, who said she did not think he would stage an armed robbery at another Dunkin' Donuts out of spite.

"He wasn't the type to hold a grudge like that," she said. "He just had issues."

"He just had issues"?

I'm going to stick my neck out here and venture a controversial theory about what kind of person would walk into a Dunkin Donuts and blow away a cop in cold blood.

I think it is possible that this cop killer might just have been a bad person.

That his education, employment history, money problems, and even Burger King commercials really were not what made him do what he did.

Did affluence, college and law school prevent Ted Bundy from murdering 30 people?

OK, since we're supposed to be noticing faces, let's take a look at Bundy's:

Maybe not exactly Lewis's innocent "baby face," but what is evil supposed to look like, anyway? (I've known wonderful people who looked a lot more ferocious than that.)

Or is it that "we" are responsible for John Lewis, but not Ted Bundy? I don't see how. I think that there are bad people, and evil exists in the world. Had John Lewis been arrested for stealing food to feed himself, I'd be more sympathetic.

I'll say this for the Inquirer editorial; at least it didn't try to paint John Lewis into an argument for gun control.

That rhetorical task was left up to Governor Ed Rendell, and columnist Monica Yant Kinney.

Rendell and his crowd are trying to spin the gun issue as "urban" versus "rural" one; this Inquirer headline being a perfect example:

Rendell puts gun divide to the test
"This does not break down on partisan lines. It's rural vs. urban," an observer said. A showdown comes Tuesday.

Gun-control bills have tended to die obscurely in the halls of the Pennsylvania Capitol, rarely requiring a legislator to cast a recorded vote.

The popularity of hunting in the state, and the lobbying power of the National Rifle Association, taught legislative leaders not to bother.

This week, Gov. Rendell will force a public reckoning.

In a highly unusual move, the governor plans to testify Tuesday before the House Judiciary Committee to urge passage of three bills, including one - to limit handgun purchases to one a month - that has languished for a year. The committee chairman, Thomas Caltagirone (D., Berks), agreed to schedule votes the same day - this after a call from the governor.

Despite Rendell's gambit and a wave of gun crimes in Philadelphia and smaller cities, longtime political pros say committee passage of the bills is iffy - and approval by the full House and the Senate even less likely.

"Rendell is fighting a series of political and cultural forces in this state," said pollster Terry Madonna of Franklin and Marshall College.

An angry Rendell, clenching his teeth and pounding the lectern so hard it rocked, on Friday implored lawmakers to take guns out of the hands of thugs to protect citizens and police. The governor's passionate outburst came on the heels of the murder of Philadelphia Officer Chuck Cassidy.

"This does not break down on partisan lines. It's rural vs. urban, and Democrats have a strong rural base in the southwest and northeast," Madonna said.

Democratic media consultant Larry Ceisler, a Philadelphian who grew up in rural southwestern Pennsylvania, agreed that the politics are tough but noted that Rendell had some leverage.

"The fact is legislative hearings in Harrisburg don't usually make the 6 and 11 o'clock news, but this one will," Ceisler said. Ultimately, though, "it's a campaign, and there's going to have to be a lot of grassroots work" to win acceptance of gun control in Pennsylvania, he said.

"In the end, it won't have the votes to pass," said Jeff Coleman, a former Republican legislator and now a political consultant. "It will end up being a terrific fund-raising tool for Republicans in rural areas running for reelection, and it will do the same thing for Gov. Rendell in his attempts to widen the Democratic majority in the House."

A poll done in six legislative districts for CeaseFire PA found that constituents favored one-gun-a-month legislation by a 2-1 ratio, said Phil Goldsmith, president of the gun-control group.

"At some point in time, these legislators are going to have to worry what their constituents think," he said.

Steve Miskin, a spokesman for the House GOP, said there was little sentiment in his caucus for more legislation on guns.

"The way we look at it, the governor's got a bully pulpit, and if he would spend even half the time enforcing the laws already on the books . . . we'd be further along," Miskin said.

Rendell said that was just "propaganda" from the NRA.

"The prisons are bulging. Don't tell me enforcement's the problem," he said. Limiting sales of handguns is imperative, Rendell said, because "a high percentage of crime guns are purchased by people other than the actor."

I had no idea that the NRA had the power to run politicians out of office. I thought that was the sort of thing that required losing an election, being impeached, or being a Republican in a sex scandal.

But never mind. As a member of the NRA, I'm feeling very empowered, so at the risk of spouting what Ed Rendell would call "NRA propaganda," I thought I'd offer a few reasons why I think the gun control forces have a very poor poster boy in John Lewis. Far from being an argument for gun control, his sordid spree of gun crimes (culminating in the murder of Officer Cassidy) stands as a compelling argument that gun control does not work.

All his guns were illegal.

Initially, it appeared that Lewis had killed Officer Cassidy with the gun the city had issued to his corrections officer mother, and which he stole. According to later reports though, Lewis had yet another illegal gun -- which had been stolen in Virginia. This brought his collection of stolen guns to three:

According to articles in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Lewis' mother is Lynn M. Dyches, whose prison-issued gun was missing after the Oct. 31 shooting.

However, the Inquirer reported that police believe the murder weapon was a 9 mm handgun stolen from Virginia. Lewis also allegedly stole Cassidy's sidearm after shooting him.

None of the new gun control laws that have been proposed would have done anything to stop Lewis. People in law enforcement (like his mother and Officer Cassidy) would still carry guns, and it would still be illegal to steal them. And it would be just as illegal as it was to buy guns stolen in other states.

The problem is not that we need more laws; the problem is that we need fewer evil men like John Lewis. (It might also help to enforce the law we have.)

Back to Rendell's claim that calls for better law enforcement are "NRA propaganda." What the governor seems to be missing is that eleven days before he shot Officer Cassidy, Lewis was positively identified as the gunman in a pizza store robbery. Yet no warrant was issued:

An employee of Oasis Pizza in Feltonville positively identified Lewis as a regular customer who showed up Oct. 20 with a gun demanding cash. He fled with $150. Despite the identification, no arrest warrant was obtained.

Officials said the internal investigation would focus on several questions:

Did the detective follow protocol in gathering information and pursuing it, or was the detective neglectful when an arrest warrant was not obtained?

Was the detective still investigating the case and looking for more evidence to secure a warrant? Was she assigned another job that took precedence in the busy East Detective Division, which covers some of the city's most crime-ridden neighborhoods?

The question no one can answer is whether Cassidy's death could have been prevented had a warrant been obtained and Lewis arrested, police officials said yesterday.

The name of the detective, who has been on the force for more than 20 years, has been withheld because of the pending investigation. Several people who know her said she was distraught about Cassidy's death.

Many in the police community said the case was troubling on several levels as police try to heal from the loss of Cassidy, a popular patrol officer from the 35th District, while they cope with an investigation of one of their own.

Last week, allegations surfaced within the department that the detective did not actively pursue an arrest warrant for Lewis. However, Police Commissioner Sylvester M. Johnson was not informed until questioned by The Inquirer on Wednesday, when he immediately ordered an internal investigation.

Among other things, Johnson said he wanted to know what other cases the detective was handling when the Oasis robbery was under investigation.

Johnson is adamant that appropriate discipline will be administered, if warranted, but repeated yesterday that it was too early to know whether mistakes were made.

There was an active investigation of the case before Johnson was informed, Sadler said. Sadler said he told his boss, Deputy Commissioner Patricia Giorgio-Fox, what happened, but she said she did not advise the commissioner after she learned about it Friday.

I'm sorry, but I think Lewis is the bad guy here. It's his fault; not poverty, education, unemployment, Burger King, or guns.

The prisons may be full, but short of capital punishment, locking up bad guys is the only thing that will stop them.

If they are not going to be locked up (or if, as the Inquirer says, "they do get out"), I think that taking away people's ability to defend themselves constitutes criminal recklessness.

MORE: Did police fail to act on tip? It certainly looks that way.

AND MORE: I'm wondering whether Ed Rendell and his gun-grabbing buddies have read the wonderful essay that's making the rounds which Glenn Reynolds linked earlier Here's an excerpt from "why the gun is civilization":

....Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction, and the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may sound to some.

When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your threat or employment of force. The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gangbanger, and a single gay guy on equal footing with a carload of drunk guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender.

[...]

....People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the young, the strong, and the many, and that's the exact opposite of a civilized society. A mugger, even an armed one, can only make a successful living in a society where the state has granted him a force monopoly.

Truly, guns give peace a chance.