Straw Purchases

The National Rifle Association has stock arguments it uses when anyone suggests new firearm regulations, including one-handgun-per-month purchase limits. Two bills languishing in Pennsylvania propose such a limit. The legislation is meant to make it harder to buy handguns - the weapon most often used in Philadelphia homicides - through a transaction known as a straw purchase. In a straw-purchase scheme, a felon, barred by law from buying guns, recruits someone who can legally buy numerous guns at one time.

If there's any justice in a courtroom in Philadelphia today, a judge will find 12 faith-based activists not guilty of trespassing charges. The defendants are surely guilty. They are guilty of trying to stem the bloody tide of gun violence in the city. They were arrested in January at Colosimo's Gun Center on Spring Garden Street, where they attempted to get owner James Colosimo to sign a code of conduct to reduce "straw purchases" of handguns. Colosimo has refused. Their targets include other gun shops, although Colosimo's is the worst source of handguns used in crimes on city streets.

Two key provisions of Philadelphia's latest attempt to impose local gun controls - banning assault weapons and "straw purchases" of handguns - were invalidated yesterday by a state appeals court. Following judicial precedent that doomed previous Philadelphia gun-control laws, Commonwealth Court held that the state Supreme Court ruled in 1996 that only the legislature has the authority to enact gun laws. Counties and municipal governments are out of luck. But the 6-1 majority in Commonwealth Court affirmed part of the 2008 decision of then-Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge Jane Cutler Greenspan and allowed three other provisions.

A bill targeting illegal purchases of firearms like the one used last month in the shooting death of Philadelphia Police Officer Patrick McDonald won unanimous approval yesterday in both houses of the Pennsylvania legislature. House Bill 1845 stiffens the penalty for shooting - or shooting at - police officers and increases the punishment for many offenses related to so-called straw purchases of firearms that often end up being used in violent crimes. Gov. Rendell said last night he would sign the bill.

The father of Twanita Johnson's baby needed a gun, but he couldn't buy one, because he's a convict. So Johnson, 21, who had no criminal record, went to a Bucks County gun shop and bought her baby's father a Smith & Wesson .40-caliber pistol, law-enforcement officials said. Yesterday, the recently formed Gun Violence Task Force announced that arrest warrants had been obtained for Johnson and 13 others accused of committing illegal "straw" purchases. The task force, a joint effort of District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham and state Attorney General Tom Corbett, has opened more than 70 investigations since being launched with a $5 million state grant last year.

IT'S HARDER to get lawmakers in Harrisburg to put their positions on the mandatory reporting of lost handguns on the record than to disarm dangerous felons. Case in point: Nineteen busloads of concerned citizens and law-enforcement officials made the pilgrimage to the state Capitol to demand action on a bill that would simply require handgun owners to report their weapons missing or stolen. The bill is meant to reduce straw purchases by people who buy guns for felons or others who are prohibited from buying them.

Turned on the radio the other day and heard Mayor Nutter fire off his latest salvo in an effort to generate change for the better in Philadelphia: "I pledge to increase the number of high school graduates," the mayor said. Then he pointedly asked, "What are you prepared to do?" I'm guessing that's the whole point of the "I Pledge" campaign, a series of public-service announcements featuring politicians, activists, and other notables, heard on hip-hop and R&B radio stations citywide: If everyone actually made a pledge, kept it, and held a neighbor accountable, this thing could go a long way toward fixing what's wrong with the city.

The father of Twanita Johnson's baby needed a gun, but he couldn't buy one, because he's a convict. So Johnson, 21, who had no criminal record, went to a Bucks County gun shop and bought her baby's father a Smith & Wesson .40-caliber pistol, law-enforcement officials said. Yesterday, the recently formed Gun Violence Task Force announced that arrest warrants had been obtained for Johnson and 13 others accused of committing illegal "straw" purchases. The task force, a joint effort of District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham and state Attorney General Tom Corbett, has opened more than 70 investigations since being launched with a $5 million state grant last year.

RE YOUR recent editorial "A Resolution for 2006": The News calls for restrictions on handgun purchases to one a month as though this has proven to be effective in reducing murder rates in other cities. If one-gun-a-month legislation works, please tell me why D.C. has one of the highest murder rates in the country? After all, they currently have a no-handguns-a-month law which effectively eliminates all so-called straw purchases. I find it disturbing that you would impede the rights of law-abiding gun owners without any evidence to suggest that restrictions on how many guns can be purchased in a month will actually decrease the murder rate.

Fed up with foot-dragging in Harrisburg over gun control, Philadelphia is now taking its case to court. City Councilman Darrell L. Clarke said last night that the city plans to file a lawsuit today in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court alleging that the General Assembly has failed in its duty to protect the residents of the city. "It is becoming increasingly clear to me that the General Assembly is unwilling or unable to act," Clarke said in a telephone interview last night. "We have no choice but to go to court.

Turned on the radio the other day and heard Mayor Nutter fire off his latest salvo in an effort to generate change for the better in Philadelphia: "I pledge to increase the number of high school graduates," the mayor said. Then he pointedly asked, "What are you prepared to do?" I'm guessing that's the whole point of the "I Pledge" campaign, a series of public-service announcements featuring politicians, activists, and other notables, heard on hip-hop and R&B radio stations citywide: If everyone actually made a pledge, kept it, and held a neighbor accountable, this thing could go a long way toward fixing what's wrong with the city.

Colosimo's Inc., the embattled Philadelphia gun dealer that has been the target of protests by religious leaders, was accused by federal prosecutors yesterday of knowingly selling guns to straw purchasers. Jim Colosimo, the owner of Colosimo's Gun Center on Spring Garden Street near Ninth Street, was not personally charged. He could not be reached for comment last night. The charges against the business were contained in a criminal information, which means the defendant waived the right to have the case heard before a grand jury.

Controversy is once again visiting Colosimo's gun dealership. The shop, which was the target of religious protesters earlier this year, was accused yesterday by U.S. Attorney Michael Levy of knowingly selling guns to straw purchasers. Federal investigators determined that the gun shop, on Spring Garden Street near 9th, had sold a total of 10 firearms to three straw purchasers between Aug. 4, 2004, and April 18, 2007, according to court documents. The feds say Colosimo's identified straw purchasers as the actual buyers in transaction records, even though the shop "knew or had reason to believe that each was not the actual buyer, but a straw purchaser," documents show.

A New Jersey drug dealer who arranged the straw purchases of dozens of guns in exchange for cash and crack cocaine was sentenced yesterday in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia to 30 years in prison. Sean Hagins was a Trenton crack dealer in 2004 when he saw an opportunity to become a gunrunner. Hagins noticed that one of his customers from Pennsylvania, David Downs, had a pickup truck with an NRA sticker on it. As a felon with multiple convictions for dealing drugs and forgery, Hagins, 37, couldn't buy guns himself.

Two key provisions of Philadelphia's latest attempt to impose local gun controls - banning assault weapons and "straw purchases" of handguns - were invalidated yesterday by a state appeals court. Following judicial precedent that doomed previous Philadelphia gun-control laws, Commonwealth Court held that the state Supreme Court ruled in 1996 that only the legislature has the authority to enact gun laws. Counties and municipal governments are out of luck. But the 6-1 majority in Commonwealth Court affirmed part of the 2008 decision of then-Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge Jane Cutler Greenspan and allowed three other provisions.

Protesting straw purchases The ongoing protests at Colosimo's gun shop on Spring Garden Street by Philly church people has shed some much-needed light on the issue of straw purchases of handguns in the Delaware Valley ("12 acquitted in Phila. gun-shop showdown," Wednesday). This group, Heeding God's Call, peacefully forces the issue to remain on the plate at all times. City cops whom I've spoken to have been in total support of the protests, pointing out that the unacceptably easy access to handguns and assault weapons translates into real fatalities for law enforcement as well as the general public.

Twelve activists from the interfaith group Heeding God's Call who were arrested at Colosimo's gun shop in Philadelphia in January were acquitted of all charges in a one-day bench trial in Municipal Court. After hearing a full day of testimony in a crowded courtroom, Judge Karen Yvette Simmons found the members of the group, many of them area clergy, not guilty of conspiracy, defiant trespassing, disorderly conduct, and obstructing a highway, all misdemeanors. The Rev. Isaac Miller, pastor of North Philadelphia's Church of the Advocate, a member of the group, hailed the trial as raising awareness about gun violence in Philadelphia.

If there's any justice in a courtroom in Philadelphia today, a judge will find 12 faith-based activists not guilty of trespassing charges. The defendants are surely guilty. They are guilty of trying to stem the bloody tide of gun violence in the city. They were arrested in January at Colosimo's Gun Center on Spring Garden Street, where they attempted to get owner James Colosimo to sign a code of conduct to reduce "straw purchases" of handguns. Colosimo has refused. Their targets include other gun shops, although Colosimo's is the worst source of handguns used in crimes on city streets.

A bill targeting illegal purchases of firearms like the one used last month in the shooting death of Philadelphia Police Officer Patrick McDonald won unanimous approval yesterday in both houses of the Pennsylvania legislature. House Bill 1845 stiffens the penalty for shooting - or shooting at - police officers and increases the punishment for many offenses related to so-called straw purchases of firearms that often end up being used in violent crimes. Gov. Rendell said last night he would sign the bill.

IN HIS recent op-ed, radio talker Charles Williams seeks to belittle efforts by gun-violence-prevention groups to pass laws regulating access to guns by saying we miss the real reasons for gun violence. "It is failing families, schools and communities that lead to drug-related gun violence, not guns purchased by law-abiding citizens," he says. If young men had male mentors, we wouldn't have gun violence. He even asserts that straw purchases of guns (a felon who is barred from making the purchase uses a friend to do it for him)