July 28, 2010

Chester is a city besieged by violence. Fourteen people have lost their lives on the city's mean streets since January.

Chester Mayor Wendell N. Butler Jr. June 19 tried a state of emergency to quell the violence. He slapped a strict curfew on five crime-riddled neighborhoods, limiting the hours residents could be on the streets without sufficient reason.

Just eight days after the curfew was established, the silence was broken by the city's 12th homicide. Later, shots rang out just hours after the mayor stood on a podium to announce the end of the special curfew July 23.

Monday, Butler and Police Chief Floyd Lewis listened as state Rep. Thaddeus Kirkland, D-159, of Chester, laid the groundwork for a new approach.

Kirkland called a press conference to ask Chester Council to join 45 other Pennsylvania municipalities that have passed either an ordinance or resolution to report lost or stolen firearms.

An ordinance by city council would require residents to report lost or stolen guns within a specific timeframe or face fines and/or incarceration. The ordinance Kirkland proposed suggested a 72-hour timeframe for reporting missing guns, fines not to exceed $1,000 and jail time no longer than 90 days.

A resolution by Chester Council would merely show the city's support for the General Assembly to pass a state law mandating comparable punishments for an infraction. Radnor, Sharon Hill and Swarthmore have passed similar resolutions.

While no Delaware County municipality has passed an ordinance, 29 municipalities outside the county have done so, including the cities of Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Harrisburg. Gun lobbyists challenged these ordinances five times, each time seeing those challenges rejected by the courts, including the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's decision last month upholding Philadelphia's lost or stolen handgun law.

Kirkland, Butler and Lewis hope such a law would diminish straw sales. Straw sales occur when someone legally allowed to purchase a gun, buys one, and sells it to another person who could not legally purchase a weapon.

Purchasers often buy numerous guns to turn a tidy profit. Other purchasers turn the weapon over to someone they know who is forbidden by current law to buy a gun. Whatever the motivation, under the proposed ordinance, if a gun purchased this way is involved in a crime and the purchaser then claims it was stolen or lost, police could fine and arrest that person.

As the police chief, Lewis, pointed out, local police departments cannot ask to see numerous guns bought by one person, but the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms can. If the guns are not available when ATF wants to see them, or the homeowner claims the guns were stolen, criminal charges could be brought against the gun buyer.

At the press conference this week, Kirkland said victims of car thefts or home and business robberies have no problem reporting those losses to the police. What makes a stolen gun different?

While neither the ordinance nor resolution proposed by Kirkland is a remedy for Chester's ills, every available tool to help control guns and violence in that city should be used.

As the state rep said, it "just makes good common sense."