Year: 2008

He’s calling for a renewal of the assault weapons ban:

Rendell says the gun that cut down Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski (see related story) was a Chinese assault weapon, and he says that there used to be a ban on importing assault weapons:

“And yet in 2004, the Congress of the United States — often some of the very same congressmen who would come and attend ceremonies like this — let the assault weapons ban lapse.”

The governor acknowledged that the gun that killed Liczbinski was brought into the country “well before that action,” but says it’s symptomatic of the refusal of lawmakers to provide “maximum protection” to law enforcement:

“If we really want to pay honor and tribute to the memory of those 703 police officers who have given their lives, we will suck it in, do the right thing, and pass laws that would give our police officers out on the street, protecting us every day, the maximum amount of protection we can.”

I don’t expect much out of the city politicians, but I would have expected the governor to show some class and not jump on the bandwagon of exploiting this for political gain.  Also more “Kill a cop, we’ll blame something other than the criminal.”, and this time from our governor.

From a comment to this Philadelphia Daily News article:

Good Luck Nutter. You can not use reason when you try to reason with those inbred NRA morons. What he should do is arrange for a bus to go to the cow pastures of Central PA and pick up all those NRA nuts and bring them to Philly. Let them try to survive one night on the streets here and see if they still want to block the assault weapon ban.

They would survive.  Not only would they survive if they were relocated, but Philadelphia would very quickly have a lower crime rate, because those people would not tolerate the levels of crime that goes on in these high crime neighborhoods in the city.  If you want to see what happens when you drop a gun nut into the middle of an inner city, take a look at Pro-Gun Progressive.

It’s not the geography that’s the issue.  North Philadelphia is not destined to be a hell hole.  It’s a hell hole because the streets are ruled by thugs.  But getting rid of the thugs is going to entail working with the police, and electing judges willing to put the criminals in jail for a long time.  The rural parts of this state are virtually crime free, but they are like that because the people there would not tolerate the levels of crime in their neighborhoods that people in north Philadelphia tolerate.  I’m reluctant to blame the povery too, because there are parts of this state that are definitely struggling with poverty and lack of opportunity that don’t have a fraction of the crime Philadelphia does.  Philadelphians have spent entirely too long allowing their politicians to feed them excuses for why the crime is so high.  Maybe when they stop buying it, they’ll demand something actually be done about it.

Wyatt links to the address donations can be sent to the family:

Stephen Liczbinski Family Memorial Trust Fund
Philadelphia Police and Fire Federal Credit Union
901 Arch Street
Philadelphia, Pa. 19107