Philadelphia--still trying to treat sociological problems as a "gun problem"

This article from the Philadelphia Inquirer follows the usual "blame the guns" formula so beloved of the editors of that paper, but what makes it interesting is the fact that in trying to make the arguments for civilian disarmament, it surprisingly (and perhaps accidentally), actually hits on a couple valid points.

The article is about the fact that four homicides over the past weekend have pushed Philly's homicide total for the year over that of 2005. Philadelphia Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson notes that the national focus on terrorism has come at a cost to enforcement of laws against common, garden variety crime.

Johnson said the federal government needs to shift some of its resources from homeland security to "hometown security" and the state needs to enact tougher gun-control laws.

So he admits that much of the problem stems from inadequate resources to combat homegrown thuggery, but still says let's ban guns!

The first of the weekend's homicides is, according to the article, suspected to have been drug related--but instead of taking a long, hard look at the "war on drugs," let's ban guns! (UPDATE: According to this article, two of the other murders may very well have been drug-related, as well).

We do get a bit of an admission that the problems go beyond the "easy availability of guns":

Anticrime activists and officials blame the city's high homicide numbers not just on the lack of adequate gun-control laws, but also on the sense of desperation felt by impoverished young African American men, who are responsible for the majority of the shootings and make up the majority of the victims.

I guess tackling poverty, inadequate education, drug addiction, and lack of decent jobs is too difficult--so let's ban guns!

A bit further down, we get an idea about who is committing all these murders

Jones [cofounder of Men United for a Better Philadelphia, a nonprofit group that works to stop gun violence] said most homicides in the city were committed by people on parole or probation, and he believed more should be done to help ex-offenders reenter society.

But instead of ending the current "justice" system's catch and release strategy, let's ban guns!

One ambitious fellow apparently realizes that before the government can effectively violate the Second Amendment, the Fourth Amendment is going to have to be trampled, as well (or perhaps he would argue that the Fourth Amendment only protects the right of the National Guard to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures).

Lawrence W. Sherman, director of the Jerry Lee Center of Criminology at the University of Pennsylvania, said a better solution would be implementing a "stop and frisk" policy to keep people from carrying guns in public places.

"The evidence suggests that 'stop and frisk' is the strategy to which homicide rates respond most immediately," Sherman said.

Philadelphia certainly has some real problems to clean up, but restrictive gun laws will do exactly ZERO toward that end.