PA Bill Number: HB2300

Title: Authorizing the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to join the Counseling Compact; and providing for the form of the compact.

Description: An Act authorizing the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to join the Counseling Compact; and providing for the form of the compact.

Last Action: Referred to PROFESSIONAL LICENSURE

Last Action Date: May 20, 2024

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Who will get blamed, penalized for Chicago, Baltimore bloodbaths? :: 05/27/2015

Gun prohibitionists looking to make a difference ought to converge on Chicago or Baltimore, two cities that racked up quite a body count over the Memorial Day weekend, with the latter producing the worst carnage for one month in more than 15 years, according to WJZ, the local CBS affiliate. They could personally disarm the criminals.

Coincidentally, the Windy City’s bloodbath over the weekend is also being chronicled today by WBBM, the CBS affiliate there. The network doesn’t have to look too hard for sensational stories. Just focus on two cities with anti-gun administrations and bodies will stack up like cordwood.

Chicago reportedly saw a dozen homicides over the weekend and “at least 43 people” were wounded, including a 4-year-old girl. Back in Baltimore, there were reported more than two dozen shootings over the weekend that produced nine homicides.

On June 6 – the 71st anniversary of the D-Day landings at Normandy – anti-gunners are planning a demonstration at Chuck’s Gun Shop in Riverdale, a Chicago suburb. Proprietor John Riggio advised Examiner of the upcoming event via e-mail.

Riggio has been on the receiving end of anti-gun protests before. At one of these events seven years ago, a local priest made some unseemly remarks about how the gun shop owner might be “snuffed.”

It isn’t clear who has been doing all of the shooting and killing in either city, but it’s probably a safe wager that it’s not a bunch of law-abiding gun owners. It’s probably not even legal gun owners, using firearms that may have been illegally obtained. But who gets the blame?

This Saturday, law-abiding gun owners tired of taking the hit for crimes they didn’t commit will gather in Salem, Oregon to protest that state’s new gun control measure, SB 941. It’s a so-called “universal background check” measure pushed through the Legislature by Democrats against the opposition from Second Amendment activists, some county sheriffs and pro-rights Republicans.

It is not likely that the Salem event will include rock-throwing, burning, window-smashing or looting. Perhaps that’s because many, if not most of the participants will likely be armed, and it is well known what celebrated author Robert Heinlein had to say about that.

Gun control laws will not bring back the dead in Chicago or Baltimore, or anywhere else, nor will they prevent future carnage. Gun control didn’t prevent any of these slayings.

WJZ’s coverage of the mayhem in Baltimore noted that the spike in violence “is plaguing all parts of the city.” This is the same city that has seen rioting following the police-custody death of Freddie Gray, but so far, there have been no calls for massive protests against the holiday weekend bloodletting. Is that because police didn’t pull the triggers? The people who died over the weekend in Chicago and Baltimore are no less dead simply because they were killed by armed miscreants.

Reducing violent crime requires penalizing the right people. Passing one more law that thugs won’t obey produces nothing but feel-good headlines that create the illusion of taking action. It’s a flimsy sham.

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