Obama, Kenney shooting blanks

GUNS ARE A blight on our country, many believe.

In the past couple of days, President Obama has moved to keep guns out of illegal hands, while Mayor Kenney has made it safer for hoods to hold them.

This requires explanation.

Obama used an executive action to slightly tighten background checks, which are supported by more than 85 percent of Americans, according to the Pew Research Center.

Obama resorted to this tactic because Congress rejects legislation, such as the 2013 Manchin-Toomey bill, to extend background checks to prevent felons and nutcases from buying guns.

The language of Obama's action is imprecise and open to legal challenge, but, in essence, designates almost anyone who sells a gun as a "dealer." All dealers are required to run background checks on buyers, a process that now can be avoided in some states at gun shows and flea markets, and in private transactions.

The action is more complex than that, but background checks are the heart of it. (You can find it online at www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/01/04/fact-sheet-new-executive-actions-reduce-gun-violence-and-make-our)

This puts me in a quandary. I believe firm background checks such as we have in Pennsylvania should be nationwide, but I dislike Obama's use of executive actions. Simultaneously, I am as frustrated as he that Congress - probably fearing NRA backlash - won't give us what we want.

His executive action, by the way, is not legally binding. Executive orders are legally binding.

As written, Obama's action would not have prevented the mass shootings in Sandy Hook and San Bernardino, which he mentioned in his remarks. Those murders were committed by people using legally acquired guns, an Associated Press analysis showed.

At best, by his own admission, the president's action would prevent a few deaths. That brings us to Kenney.

Three heartbeats after being sworn in, Kenney announced he'd abolish "stop-and-frisk" by police, suggesting it is not constitutional. Except it is, when done right, according to civil-rights lawyer David Rudovsky. Too often, it isn't, he says.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that police can stop and question citizens if they have "reasonable suspicion," he says, "something articulable," and they can't take the next step of frisking without "good reason."

A realist, Rudovsky doubts that stop-and-frisk will cease, "but it must be circumscribed."

His law firm - Kairys, Rudovsky, Messing & Feinberg - and the ACLU do an annual analysis of police procedure.

In his 2007 campaign, Michael Nutter promised to employ stop-and-frisk in response to an exploding homicide rate. The hope was to catch potential murderers with illegal guns in their possession and get both off the street.

In the past, I was told that police seized very few guns during stops, and police spokesman Lt. John Stanford says the cops don't record gun seizures that way. A rough rule of thumb is that cops get one gun per 1,000 stops. They made 200,000 stops last year. That would produce 200, which is not minor to me.

One thing we can't know is how many hoods are not packing heat for fear of a stop-and-frisk. If cops back off, hoods might step up.

The stats show that minorities are stopped and questioned and frisked out of proportion to whites. That creates understandable fear and anger in minority communities, and it should be curable. Maybe new Commissioner Richard Ross can work on that.

Now we circle back to the president. His policy potentially would save only a few lives. That's what stop-and-frisk does. Each is more symbolic than effective.

But if any lives are saved, is it worth it?

You make the call.

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