Gun

Officials at William Penn Charter School and Philadelphia police said yesterday that after an exhaustive search they found no evidence of a handgun that was reported missing on the campus in the city's East Falls section. The 44-acre campus of the private school was closed all day after the gun, which belonged to a parent, was reported missing from the woman's car about 6 p.m. Thursday. The school and grounds were searched extensively by school staff and police with search dogs, officials said.

On the morning of Oct. 21 in the Downingtown Area School District, one kindergartner was carrying more than his books to school. The boy's book bag held a gun. In his pockets were the bullets. According to Assistant Superintendent Tom Sechrist, the Beaver Creek Elementary School student showed off the gun to friends on the way home from morning classes. The bus driver, whom Sechrist would not identify, was alerted to the problem, took the gun and bullets from the boy and detained him, taking him to the principal.

The robbers had emptied the safe. At last, thought Roy Rogers manager Lamont Pressley, they would leave. But they didn't. The one with the silver-colored revolver aimed it at Pressley's head and ordered him to squeeze into a corner of the cramped manager's office with a co-worker. Then the robber cocked the pistol. "This is it," Pressley thought as the gunman pulled back the hammer. He prayed silently. He prepared to die. Then Philadelphia Police Officer Charles Knox rushed into the restaurant, broke up the execution and died a hero.

Pistols appear to be popular among the elected set in Delaware County. Besides Springfield GOP boss Charlie Sexton and Elizabeth Eckroade, local politicians carrying handguns include state Sen. Clarence Bell and Sharon Hill Mayor-elect Carmen A. Cavacini. Ernie Trosino, head of the Chester Housing Authority, also has a permit, as does Edward M. Corse, a Newtown supervisor who ran for state representative last year. So does Donald Hadley, a former Lyndon LaRouche candidate who says he needs a gun partly because he fights "Satanism.

The Mullica Hill Rifle & Pistol Club sits a couple hundred yards off Route 45, hidden behind a stand of trees at the end of an unmarked dirt path. But it's easy to find, if you know what to look for. "Just follow the 'Impeach Florio' bumper stickers," said George Shivery, president of the club in South Harrison Township, Gloucester County. When aides to Gov. Florio were trying to persuade uneasy Democratic legislators to support a ban on "assault" weapons last year, they told lawmakers that statewide polls showed 70 percent support for the measure.

Top city officials spent three days at crisis management day camp in Maryland, and no one even talked about what to do if some guy shoots himself in the thigh with a gun that's registered to the mayor. It wasn't discussed because no one figured anything that silly could become an issue. Ordinarily, major news coverage wouldn't have been given to a policeman giving Mayor Goode a gun for protection while he was managing director. The fact that Goode didn't keep track of the gun after becoming mayor may be embarrassing, but it is not worthy of so much attention.

If Ryan Phillippe had the lead in "Erin Brockovich" or "Godzilla 2000," he couldn't be more miscast than he is in "The Way of the Gun. " The tiny, cute, curly blond actor would be perfect singing "Animal Crackers in My Soup," but as one-half of a desperado duo on a crime spree along the Tex Mex border, he's laughable. Phillippe has added muscle, some face fuzz, some tattoos, but that only makes him look like somebody you might see belly up to the Smoothie bar at Bally's spa. Paired with the credibly disreputable Benicio Del Toro, Phillippe looks especially out of place.

Ronald Winn, 33, said he was sure a hit man was gunning for him. So he kept a gun handy because someone had once fired a shot at him, "and all I was worrying about was saving myself. " Winn, of 65th Avenue near 21st Street, said his paranoia led to a bloody rampage inside a crowded Nicetown club that left one man dead and four wounded on Feb. 5, 1997. "Maybe he didn't like the lap dance he got," said Assistant District Attorney Randolph Williams. Williams said when customers at Prince's Total Experience Lounge, Broad Street and Hunting Park Avenue, saw Winn reach into his pocket, they thought he was going to pull out a dollar to slip to a go-go dancer.

On Jan. 2, Kenneth Billak caught his man, but got himself caught too. Billak was working as a private security guard for the Woolworth's department store at the Oxford Valley Mall that day when he followed a man who he believed had stolen a VCR from the store. When the suspect, James Clark, 39, of North Hicks Street, Philadelphia, tried to flee in the parking lot, Billak pulled a 9mm semiautomatic pistol from a holster and fired a shot into the air, according to court records.

IAPPLAUD Mayor Nutter and City Council for drafting and signing a gun-control bill in an effort to control the murder rate in the city. While reading the article, I could visualize my 16-year-old second cousin in a vacant property with three other people. He's shot playing Russian roulette. I could visualize another cousin being shot and paralyzed. Then I visualize my brother being shot four times by someone trying to rob him. Luckily, he survived, thanks to the officer who just put him in the back seat and drove him to the hospital.