Gun Violence

They might not have hit the million mark, but the hundreds of thousands of demonstrators who showed up in Washington for the Mother's Day gun-control march were impressive by any historical or political standard. In decades of pushing and pulling between gun controllers and gun promoters, there has been nothing like this event. It was possible, for a day, to feel that everything had changed, that gun control's political moment had arrived. And some things really have changed.

HARRISBURG - A bill fast-tracking through the General Assembly aims to send a tough message to local governments in Pennsylvania: Pass gun-control measures at your own financial peril. The legislation would penalize municipalities - including Philadelphia and 29 others - that have enacted laws to curb illegal gun sales by requiring them to pay damages and penalties to plaintiffs who challenge those laws in the courts. The bill is being applauded by the National Rifle Association and condemned by such local officials as Lancaster's mayor and Philadelphia's district attorney.

On a gray morning, Deion Barnes rolls out of his narrow bed with an hour commute and four hours of lifting, running, blocking, and passing on the horizon. His season opener is in two weeks, launching the last year the championship-hungry captain will run onto a field wearing the red and black of Northeast High School's Vikings. A chiseled 6-foot-4 and 220 pounds, Barnes is ranked as the sixth-best defensive end in the country by college-recruitment site Rivals.com, and he has narrowed his choices of big-time football programs to Penn State, Pittsburgh, Georgia, South Carolina, and Michigan.

Everyone has a parking-violation story. And they all end the same way. In nuclear-ballistic fury, venom-spewing outrage, and teeth-gnashing indignation that the only efficient agency in Philadelphia is the one that makes life unbearable. And unaffordable. "Let's take a step back here," says Jeremiah Connors, director of the Philadelphia Bureau of Administrative Adjudication. "We're talking about parking tickets. " Ooh, baby, you bet we are. Those paper tongues wagging under the windshield wiper have a unique power to stir the soul.

Gov. Rendell signed an executive order yesterday establishing a 21-person commission to investigate the recent surge in gun violence throughout the state. The commission's report, due by May 16, is expected to suggest changes to the law and how money can best be used to curb the bloodshed. Rendell also said he would assign 20 state troopers to a federal task force that deals with interstate gun trafficking. In the last month, incidents in Philadelphia, York and Pittsburgh have brought the issue of gun violence to the forefront.

IT'S THE FIRST week of summer. As heat and humidity rise, gun deaths and injuries continue to climb in Philly, Camden, Reading, York, Harrisburg and elsewhere. Police and community organizers worry that summer's heat will fuel the fire. Two critical opportunities have arisen during this portentous week for local legislators to step up, show some courage and act to lower the flame of gun violence. Sadly, one such opportunity was missed on Tuesday, as Pennsylvania House Judiciary Committee Chairman Thomas Caltagirone (D-Berks)

In recent weeks, lively Philadelphia nightclubs have been hit by deadly gun violence. A gun battle erupted among club-goers leaving Dreemz Ultra Lounge in Old City last month, leaving one man dead and another critically wounded. A man fired a gun outside Koko Bongo in University City on Oct. 28, striking a police officer in the leg and grazing a bystander. Police shot and killed the gunman. Police from the University of Pennsylvania killed a man inside Club Wizzards at 38th and Chestnut Streets on Nov. 26 after he shot and critically injured the club's DJ. As the city struggles with a proliferation of illegal guns while trying to promote a thriving night scene, fun has turned into mayhem in neighborhoods otherwise considered safe.

Last summer, two Pennsylvania legislators, Andrew Carn and T.J. Rooney, both Democrats, held public hearings on gun violence and gun safety. Hardly anyone came. Last year, Carn and Rooney introduced legislation aimed at toughening gun-safety laws. Hardly anyone listened. Today, however, it's a different story. Mayor Rendell recently went before gun manufacturers and called on them to help stop the violence caused by firearms. The city plans a major anti-gun violence campaign this summer.

ITRULY FEEL the pain of the many parents who have lost an innocent child to gun violence in our once beautiful city, recently turned bloody. But we can't possibly totally understand without being in their position. What I do understand clearly is that there are guns easily available to anyone. But we don't have to use them. This is a choice. There is a mentality in certain individuals who accepted crack when it was first introduced as a means of escape. And it destroyed families.

I VIEWED with sadness and utter disgust the rash of gun violence that has beset our city. When are we as a community and city going to step up and make the fight against the murder of innocents a priority? Losing terrified citizens to the suburbs is but a small consequence. What about the children who never get to grow up and realize their dreams? Or the families destroyed by having their fathers murdered for nothing? Sadly, I don't see an end to this. Those of us with a heart will continue to sympathize from a distance and pray we're not next.

Pennsylvania lawmakers are considering a measure that could help keep guns out of the hands of career criminals by imposing a mandatory five-year prison sentence on any felon caught carrying a weapon. But since there's usually a catch whenever new gun laws are the subject, you might be asking, What is it going to be this time? Harrisburg, after all, is known for letting sensible gun-violence prevention proposals die. Many never even make it to a committee vote, due to the vise-grip of the National Rifle Association on any item related to gun rights.

Everyone has a parking-violation story. And they all end the same way. In nuclear-ballistic fury, venom-spewing outrage, and teeth-gnashing indignation that the only efficient agency in Philadelphia is the one that makes life unbearable. And unaffordable. "Let's take a step back here," says Jeremiah Connors, director of the Philadelphia Bureau of Administrative Adjudication. "We're talking about parking tickets. " Ooh, baby, you bet we are. Those paper tongues wagging under the windshield wiper have a unique power to stir the soul.

The six weeks since the senseless shooting of Florida teen Trayvon Martin by a town-watch volunteer have only served to intensify the scrutiny of reckless self-defense laws - like one on the books in Pennsylvania - that permit citizens to shoot first if they feel threatened. So it's good to hear that State Rep. Ronald G. Waters (D., Phila.) has issued a call for gun-safety reforms and to "not let Trayvon Martin's death go in vain. " The legal defense that, so far, has shielded George Zimmerman from being arrested for the Feb. 26 death of Martin, after an encounter in a gated central Florida community, is one that could be used in Pennsylvania and nearly two-dozen other states with what's known as "stand your ground" laws.

Town-watch volunteer George Zimmerman told Florida police he felt so threatened by a 17-year-old high schooler toting only a soft drink and a bag of Skittles that he had to gun him down. As preposterous as that sounds, the self-defense claim carried enough weight with police in the Seminole County town of Sanford that Zimmerman, 28, has yet to be charged in the death of Trayvon Martin, a well-liked Miami teen with no criminal record. That's because Florida - like Pennsylvania, among nearly two-dozen other states - in recent years enacted a reckless law that gives citizens the right to use lethal force if they feel threatened.

PHILADELPHIA Museum zoning OK'd Proposed zoning changes sponsored by City Councilman Mark Squilla to allow construction of a Museum of the American Revolution, at 3rd and Chestnut streets, were approved yesterday by Council's rules committee. Initially, the museum was going to be built in Valley Forge National Historical Park, then it was planned for a nearby location. Both times it was met with resistance. Finally, the museum found a home in the city's historic district.

HARRISBURG - A bill fast-tracking through the General Assembly aims to send a tough message to local governments in Pennsylvania: Pass gun-control measures at your own financial peril. The legislation would penalize municipalities - including Philadelphia and 29 others - that have enacted laws to curb illegal gun sales by requiring them to pay damages and penalties to plaintiffs who challenge those laws in the courts. The bill is being applauded by the National Rifle Association and condemned by such local officials as Lancaster's mayor and Philadelphia's district attorney.

This is an opinion of t he Daily News People's Editorial Board, a group of 10 citizens who gather to debate hot topics in the city. Watch video of the board's debate on gun laws . RASHI Anderson should have turned 18 today. But he didn't get the chance. A few weeks ago, this promising young man was gunned down a block from his house in East Germantown. There is no known motive, and no arrests have been made. We are 46 days into the new year, and 48 people have already been killed.

HARRISBURG - A bill fast-tracking through the General Assembly aims to send a tough message to local governments in Pennsylvania: Pass gun-control measures at your own financial peril. The legislation would penalize municipalities - including Philadelphia and 29 others - that have enacted laws to curb illegal gun sales by requiring them to pay damages and penalties to plaintiffs who challenge those laws in the courts. The bill is being applauded by the National Rifle Association and condemned by such local officials as Lancaster's mayor and Philadelphia's district attorney.

One suspected drug dealer kept a four-foot alligator chained in his basement and two gigantic Burmese pythons in the dining room. He also had seven bundles of crack cocaine in a fish tank in the living room. Another suspect had $263,000 worth of marijuana stashed in buckets in the basement of his West Philadelphia grocery. Umar Garvin tried hiding heroin in his long johns before police descended on him, and officers banged down the door of Milzy, a neighborhood barber, allegedly selling pot out of his shop, handshake-style, beneath framed portraits of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. These arrests - and dozens more - came Wednesday and Thursday as teams of Philadelphia Police Department narcotics officers conducted drug sweeps in violent hot spots across West and Southwest Philadelphia.

Along this strip of Germantown Avenue where business is cheap and quick, prayer is its own commodity. Places of worship have staked their claim amid the take-out food stores, discount shops, abandoned buildings, and blue lights from a police surveillance camera on the corner, near Silver Street. Inside the storefront Philly Open Air Church this mild Wednesday night, the youth-study Bible lesson is on the power of forgiveness, out of the book of Matthew. The circle of nine - mostly teenage boys and young men - sit on worn couches in a conversation that turns to violence.