Councilwoman Wants To Ban Toy Guns

Philadelphia Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller is concerned about the gun violence in this city.

Crowd: How concerned is she?

Why, she’s so concerned with the gun violence in this city she’s going to ban the sale of toy guns!

(Pause for laughter.)

Exactly, that’s not funny. Because, of course, it’s true! It’s buried in this Friday Inquirer City Council roundup: “Just how to determine which toy guns meet those characteristics will be discussed in hearings, Miller said. Her legislation includes detailed exceptions, including toys that are made of see-through plastic or have bright coloring.”

Hey, wait, that doesn’t even sound that awful. Oh no, has a City Councilwoman finally introduced stupid nitpicky legislation that’s well-thought out in advance and essentially bulletproof? Oh well. I guess I could complain about time wasted in hearings, but it’s not like that time was going to be used for something more important. I’ll have to investigate more.

The legislation isn’t up on the website yet, but hopefully the wording will be better than it was for the voluntary toy gun sale moratorium last fall, which began: “The City Council Of Philadelphia Calls Upon The Responsible Merchants Of Philadelphia – During These Troubling Times, With Gun Violence At An All Time High - To Implement A Voluntary Moratorium On The Sale of Toys Guns In The Philadelphia Stores.” (Other than that, it wasn’t that bad, surprisingly. Donna Reed Miller clearly does not want to be made fun of for this.)

For more restrained commentary on this issue, please head to the place where I first read about this, Domelights. An example: “I’m sick of ‘it’s society’s fault, it’s the gun’s fault, there ain’t enough jobs…..etc. etc.” Ha, how dare politicians attempt to end poverty and improve society.

Snowball Fight Leads To Shooting

While most Philadelphians spent the weekend indoors watching injuries befall our sports teams and movies they haven’t seen win awards, there still was some snow on the ground from Friday’s first real snowfall of the winter. And so smarter Philadelphians spent most of their time playing in the snow. (Me, I spent most of the weekend indoors sick. Duh.)

A few tow-headed residents even decided to throw snowballs at people, a tradition of young brats since snow was invented. Unfortunately, uh, somebody shot one of the teenagers throwing snowballs. Two sixteen year olds were having a snowball fight when one of their throws accidentally hit a neighbor in the face. And, then, the neighbor returned and shot one of ‘em in the head at point blank range.

More »

Vince Fumo, Moving To Camera 2

Challenger Anne Dicker’s camp sent over this ad for Vince Fumo’s State Senate re-election bid yesterday, complaining that Fumo really hasn’t done much for illegal guns on the streets. Fair enough.

But I believe the real beauty in this ad is, um, the ad itself. I didn’t really notice how brilliant it was ’til it aired after Gladiators last night: Fumo serving the people dinner, the face of the dude at the kitchen table, the little head-tilt by Fumo at the end. Forget the State Senate, we need to get Vince Fumo a sitcom.

If I were Anne Dicker, I’d just show this ad on an infinite loop at one of her watering hole meetups; I can’t see how a night of drinking and watching this ad over and over could do anything but increase attendance.

Clip Art Shows Gun Violence Who’s Boss

The clip art above is from a promo flier for Bowling Against Bullets (.pdf), an anti-bullet event being held at Lucky Strike Lanes on Nov. 30. (Personally, wouldn’t Bowling Over Bullets better? Plus you’ve got the BOB acronym; it’s kind of perfect. Somebody get me a consulting gig.)

The $30 event is attempting to stop the violence; whether it will do that or not, I cannot say. I can say, though, that the clip art of literally bowling against bullets is one of the finest marketing uses of Adobe Illustrator I have seen in years. Do you think the pins will actually be painted up to look like bullets on the 30th?

Dress code will “strictly” be enforced on the 30th, which bans sports jerseys, baggy clothes and “MC Colors.” Right.

Police Shooting In West Oak Lane

Hey, not fun news update: A second cop has been shot in Philadelphia for the second time in the past day; he was shot in the head at Dunkin’ Donuts in West Oak Lane. If you can get to a TV, the coverage is weird and surreal; going from, say, Guiding Light to coverage of a cop being shot, then back to the soap opera. This shooting was near a plaque dedication of fallen officers, which had to be postponed. (Update: Clarified that previous sentence.) That means there were a lot of officers nearby, and they’re chasing after the suspect. The officer shot in the head is in critical condition.

NBC 10 is going from the morning news magazine show with everyone dressed up in Halloween costumes to the coverage. Meanwhile, last night a police officer responded to a shooting at 15th and Sansom — hey, right outside the PW offices — and was shot at 22nd and Sansom in the shoulder. He’s going to be okay, reports say.

The suspect in the shooting last night at 9 apparently dove into the Schuylkill and died.

Philadelphia Police Officer Shot In Head [NBC 10]
Cop wounded by suspect in shooting of 3 [Inquirer]

NRA Exec Lets People Know Where To Murder

Oh, that wacky, wacky NRA! Always saying wacky things like this!

In August, Wayne LaPierre, NRA executive vice president, spoke at a rally in Ames, Iowa, and blamed Philadelphia’s murder rate on lax law enforcement rather than the proliferation of guns. “You want to kill people, go to Philadelphia, where only a third of all murderers will even be arrested,” LaPierre was quoted by the Iowa State Daily.

Wait, I thought that was the fault of Stop Snitchin’! This came at the end of an article discussing how the NRA is against one-gun a month laws and blah blah blah blah. I can’t imagine why someone would need more than one handgun a month, but then again I don’t see how limiting Philadelphia gun shops to selling only one gun a month per person is going to actually solve any problems.

Everyone will just argue over things like this over and over and over and over until everyone in Philadelphia is dead.

NRA chief denounces Phila. antigun effort [Inquirer]

Nude TV Reporter Gets Murder Confession

Back in 2004, ex-NBC 10 anchor Sharon Reed posed naked for an artistic nude shoot, but after disrobing chickened out, because, as Americans, we’re taught to fear nudity. (She also threatened NBC 10 reporter Alycia Taylor back in 2002 on an online messageboard. What is it with news anchors?)

Well, since then, she’s moved on to reporting more serious events, it seems, as Reed recently went all Nancy Phillips and got a murder suspect to confess to shooting a 12-year-old girl.

{Eric] Wilson confessed his role during a phone interview with 19 Action News Anchor Sharon Reed Monday evening - and apologized to the victim’s family.

Wilson says he understands - having five daughters of his own.

Wilson is still on the lam, but there’s a $5,000 reward for his capture. Reed is planning to celebrate by stripping off all her clothes over the phone.

Funeral Arrangements Set for Murder Victim Asteve’e “Cookie” Thomas [WOIO]
Sharon Reed Gets Naked [Metacafe]

Mayor Finally Introduced To His Police Commissioner

It may have taken a triple homicide at a bar — and a bunch of shootings over the weekend — but Mayor John Street met with Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson for a brainstorming session! This marks the first time the mayor has met Johnson, and the two were said to get along pretty well.

And, apparently their solution is to ban alcohol or something.

A couple of recent shooting incidents drew special attention during the meeting with Mayor John Street: “I am really concerned about bars and the proliferation of shootings and violence that are taking place in bars. We had another triple shooting in a bar over the weekend. We had a triple homicide in a bar the weekend before that.”

Hey, the mayor’s doing something, everybody! Gather around, this is about as common as a full solar eclipse or the installation of a new pope.

Mayor Meets With Phila. Police Brass To Address City Crisis [KYW 1060]

Loch Ness Monster Shuts Down Crime Cameras

A 23-year-old man was shot and killed outside a Chinese restaurant over the weekend. Fortunately, there were cameras outside the restaurant, and the killer will hopefully soon be identified.

Ha ha, just kidding! (Not about the homicide, but about the cameras.) In yet another example of the incompetence of Big Brother, the cameras outside the Chinese restaurant were not working. (If Nineteen Eighty-Four were real, Winston’s time in Room 101 would have been spent playing with puppies.) Back in March, the cameras — installed by the Philadelphia Commercial Development Corporation — also didn’t work, so they’ve really made a lot of progress on the issue. (Hey, another parenthetical aside: Perhaps one of the problems was that ex-PCDC president and soon-to-be-City Councilman Curtis Jones said he had a master’s degree when in fact he had a certificate of compliance from a weekend seminar of some sort.)

Anyway, the PCDC does have an excuse for the non-working cameras.

The Philadelphia Commercial Development Corporation which runs the cameras, says hackers and a lightening strike were the reasons the cameras were off. The president of the PCDC says the cameras should be working again by Friday, and he wants the D-A and the US attorney to investigate the hackers.

Hackers and a lighting strike? Usually when you comes up with ideas for a ridiculous excuse to save face, you only choose one one those ideas.

But who knows. Perhaps there really were hackers. I don’t know what they were like, but I can only assume they are like Angelina Jolie and Jonny Lee Miller’s characters from the 1996 film Hackers, not nerdy script kiddies in their parents’ basement. This makes for a sexier story.

Anyway, next time this blog happens to be down, it’s the fault of Bigfoot and solar flares.

Crime Cameras Stall in Wynnefield
March 26: Get Ready For More Of This In The Coming Weeks

I Love The Smell of Napalm In The Morning

As you may have seen on the CBS Evening News With Katie Couric’s Legs last night, Philadelphia is having a bit of a homicide problem. Well, okay, it’s a “homicide problem” in the same way that the Delaware River is “wet.” But anyway, you probably didn’t see it, actually, since like 14 people watch it, and I’m guessing they’re all over the age of 70 and don’t have the Internet.

Anyway, now that the homicide crisis has hit national news (uh, again, right?), the mayor has kicked it into high gear and closed a bar where a triple homicide took place after an argument over the Bernard Hopkins fight. (Well, okay, the ridiculous situation might have a lot to do with it, too.)

Anyway, national correspondent Byron Pitts also wrote a blog post about the story, and, hoo, boy.

I’ve seen war up close and there is no mistaking what’s going on in places like Afghanistan and Iraq. War zones have a certain look. A certain feel. There’s even a smell to it. After spending several days in Philadelphia, I must admit there are striking similarities.

More »