GunCrisis Reporting Project: One Year Later
It was this time last year that I first tagged along with Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Jim MacMillan and his colleague Joe “Kaz” Kaczmarek as they launched their new experiment: the GunCrisis Reporting Project, an open-source journalism initiative to explore Philadelphia’s gun-violence epidemic. I wrote about their efforts in PW; since then,...
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Notable Quotables on Gun Violence in Philadelphia
Two guns recently confiscated by police in Philadelphia. Photo by Tara Murtha. Physicians for Social Responsibility hosted a presentation this week at the Friends meetinghouse for approximately 100 community members concerned about the causes and impact of gun violence in Philadelphia. One chilling statistic projected on the wall made clear the scope of the...
Continue ReadingPA Gun Background Checks Almost Tripled Since Sandy Hook
According to records published by the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), 135,603 background checks for firearms purchases were conducted in Pennsylvania last month. That’s almost triple the number of previous years: 47,456 background checks were conducted in Pennsylvania in January 2012 and 49,123 in January 2011. The startling...
Continue ReadingVP Biden Coming to Philly to Talk Guns
When you feel a shift in the force on Monday—one that may make you inexplicably slide some white Chiclets over your teeth and start dropping f-bombs—it will be because Vice President Joe Biden is in town. From the release: “On Monday, February 11, 2013, the Vice President will travel to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to hold a roundtable discussion with...
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Did Corbett Budget Live Up To Post-Newtown Mental Health Comments?
Come view my Modest Proposal. When Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett was asked about how to respond to the Newtown tragedy in December, he told reporters it wasn’t really an issue of guns, but of mental health. “It doesn’t matter if it’s an assault weapon or a handgun,” he said. “It’s a mental health issue that we have to...
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Pennsylvania Congressman Compares Gun Control to Banning Spoons
Rep. Lou Barletta (R-Pa.) went on ABC’s This Week yesterday and offered into the national discourse a charmingly smug gun-rights metaphor: Guns kill people the same way spoons make people fat. “This is a perfect example why people believe Washington is broke,” noted Barletta, who represents parts of northeast and north-central Pennsylvania, during a discussion...
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Dueling Ideas on Gun Control in Harrisburg
Last week, hundreds of people gathered inside the Capitol rotunda in Harrisburg to call for sensible gun laws in Pennsylvania. The rally was organized by CeasefirePA, a coalition of gun violence survivors and advocates against the flow of illegal firearms. The mothers spoke first. “I’m here today because my poor precious son Ryan, who you see here, is gone,”...
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Corbett Stresses Mental Health After Newtown—But His Record Says Otherwise
Nothing to see here. During questions on last week’s Newtown massacre, in which 27 people were killed, Gov. Tom Corbett told reporters that mental illness, not guns, is to blame for the tragedy. “It doesn’t matter if it’s an assault weapon or a handgun,” he said. “It’s a mental health issue that we have to work as hard as...
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Anti-violence Community Activist “Chino” Sanchez Gunned Down in Kensington
Sanchez in 2011. Photo by Jeff Fusco. As initially reported by GunCrisis.org, Wednesday night in Philadelphia was a bloody one: gunfire wounded six and killed one person before dawn. A teenage boy was shot twice in the face and once in the back in Port Richmond. A 24-year-old woman was randomly shot near 13th and Bainbridge streets while walking home from work....
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State Sen. Larry Farnese to Introduce Assault Weapon Ban
Image: State Sen. Larry Farnese State Sen. Larry Farnese (D-Philadelphia) recently announced that he’ll be introducing an assault weapons ban during the upcoming legislative session that will begin in January. “Last week’s massacre, and the similarly horrible tragedies that have occurred over the last few years, have been happening more and more frequently...
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