In a recent article in the New York Times, the pearl-clutching over rising civilian gun ownership in Philadelphia went unexpectedly off the anti-gun rails when they talked to the city’s infamous prosecutor, Larry Krasner.
Krasner has taken a lot of heat for his non-prosecution handling of criminals in the City of Brotherly Love, like many of his fellow “progressive” prosecutors supported by George Soros. The mayor, the police commissioner, the police union, and Republican state lawmakers have all taken turns publicly attacking him and his office’s policies.
This article focuses on gun ownership — both legal and not — that has skyrocketed in the increasingly dangerous city. The number of those carrying legally has soared.
The Times notices this with horror.
The number of firearm licenses issued in the city jumped to more than 52,000 in 2021, from around 7,400 in 2020.
It’s those without permits that Krasner has in mind.
His ideas about how police should handle those who carry illegally sound almost logical.
Krasner argues that arresting and imprisoning people for possessing a firearm doesn’t help lower crime but makes the problem worse by taking police time and resources away from actual violent crimes. He also points out that it chases off people investigators should talk to when investigating violent criminals.
“You can make massive numbers of gun arrests, and you do not see significant reductions in shooting,” he told the Times.
Guess what? He’s right.
The city’s records show that police made no arrests in three-quarters of the 486 fatal shootings in Philly in 2021 (more than 300 so far this year). At the same time, they racked up a record number of arrests for having a gun without a permit.
Only a small fraction of the people who are arrested for carrying guns without permits are the ones driving the violence, Mr. Krasner said. He insisted that the city needed to focus instead on people who had already proven themselves dangerous and invest in advanced forensic technology to clear the hundreds of unsolved shootings.
“What is their theory — rather than go vigorously after the people who actually shoot the gun,” Mr. Krasner asked, “that we should take 100 people and put them in jail because one of them might shoot somebody?”
That could almost be a commercial for passage of constitutional carry in the Keystone State.
Some have come to see that gun control doesn’t work to reduce crime yet has other motives for promoting civilian disarmament. But, in Krasner’s comments, there are still some on the other side who recognize the failure of gun control laws as an effective tool against violent crime.
When they acknowledge that gun control doesn’t work, it’s worth noticing.