Alphecca

It's the Mutants, Stupid!

In Pennsylvania, at least a couple folks have the right idea about controlling violent crime. From Lancaster Online:

Earlier this month, the Philadelphia Daily News called its hometown the “City of Blood,” and by all accounts that is a fair assessment for a place with 268 murders and more than 1,330 people shot this year.

So all eyes will be on Harrisburg later this month, when the state House meets in a rare, informal daylong voting session on how to curb violent crime in the City of Brotherly Love and across Pennsylvania.

But where some Philadelphia-area lawmakers see the need for tough new gun-control measures, local legislators and top law-enforcement officials see an opportunity to get to the root of the problem: drugs.

“Gun violence is coming from the drug trade,” said state Rep. Katie True, a Republican from East Hempfield Township. “People who deal in drugs, who make millions of dollars, really don’t care what kind of laws we pass on guns.”

[...]

...But such gun-control legislation faces steep odds, as it has in the recent past. Lancaster County District Attorney Don Totaro, who will also sit on the panel Tuesday, believes there are more effective ways of curbing violent crime.

“As far as gun control, I don’t see that working. Not at all,” he said. “One of the reasons is, criminals will always find ways around the laws. Essentially they only affect law-abiding citizens.”

He added, “For example, convicted felons who illegally possess guns and those who act as ‘straw purchasers’ to buy guns for felons present a clear danger to our community, yet state penalties are inadequate to deal with this serious problem.”

The solution, he said, is tougher prison sentences.