PA Bill Number: HB335
Title: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons.
Description: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons. ...
Last Action: Removed from table
Last Action Date: May 1, 2024
No background check: Stolen police gun used to shoot Philly cop :: 01/09/2016
Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross acknowledged today that the handgun used in what is being variously described as an attempted assassination of a Philly cop was a stolen police sidearm, and the shooting appears to have been done in the name of Islam, according to Fox News.
According to USA Today, freshman Mayor Jim Kenney, a Democrat who has been in office about a week, “played down the Islam connection.” He also dished out gun control rhetoric, asserting, “There are just too many guns on the streets and I think our national government needs to do something about that.”
Perhaps someone in the Pennsylvania press corps can ask the mayor exactly what he thinks should be done when a gunman uses a stolen cop gun, which pretty obviously was obtained with no background check, to shoot a policeman. The mayor, who restored Philadelphia’s status as a “sanctuary city” for illegal immigrants on his first day in office, according to Newsmax, did not elaborate.
The suspect was identified as 30-year-old Edward Archer. He reportedly fired more than a dozen rounds into the patrol car driven by officer Jessie Hartnett, who was wounded in the left arm. However, according to a briefing today, Hartnett was able to exit his car, pursue the gunman and shoot him. The suspect was apprehended by other officers.
The shooting should raise alarms about domestic terrorists. Last May two would-be terrorists were killed by police in Texas as they tried to ambush a Prophet Mohammed cartoon exhibit in Garland, Texas. In July, a man identified as Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez killed five people in two separate incidents in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Then came San Bernardino, and now Philadelphia.
Philadelphia’s shooting incident also underscores the false comfort of so-called “universal background checks” as a crime prevention measure. Criminals don’t bother with such checks, and they deal in contraband guns, and if they can’t get firearms one way, they’ll get them another, including theft of police weapons.
President Barack Obama suggested Tuesday and again last night during the CNN Town Hall on guns that even if a new law doesn’t stop all crime, but only stops some crime, that’s worthwhile. By the same token, maybe having millions of legally-armed citizens won’t stop all criminals, but they seem to be pretty good at stopping some of them, and that’s also worthwhile.
http://www.examiner.com/article/no-background-check-stolen-police-gun-used-to-shoot-philly-cop
