Rendell, mayors seek new gun laws

HARRISBURG - Once again, the governor pounded the dais as he called for tougher gun laws. Once again, mayors of cities large and small made the case for those laws. And once again, the odds that Pennsylvania's legislature would enact those laws remained long at best.

But this time, Gov. Rendell, Mayor Street, other mayors, and several Democratic legislators made a joint plea yesterday for what they called "commonsense" measures - to limit handgun purchases to one a month, require reporting of lost and stolen guns, and allow cities to pass gun curbs of their own. This time, Street drew attention to the wounded as well as the slain, citing a shooting in Philadelphia the night before that sent four people to emergency rooms.

And this time, Rendell called out the General Assembly in unusually strong language.

"For too long, this legislature has been in the control of the NRA," Rendell said at a Harrisburg news conference. "For too long, this legislature has done things favored by lobbyists, not the people of Pennsylvania."

Rendell pounded the dais as he told lawmakers to "bite their lip, suck it up, and do the right thing in Harrisburg."

Street said shooting victims' families suffer while taxpayers foot the costly medical bills. And mayors from other cities said gun violence had touched their communities, too.

Even so, resistance to the proposals is strong. House Minority Leader Sam Smith (R., Jefferson) said police and courts should do a better job of enforcing laws. He called initiatives such as limiting gun purchases to one a month "smoke and mirrors."

Smith angrily rejected Rendell's description of the NRA's clout in Harrisburg as "delusional," adding: "The position I have on gun control is consistent with the constituents I represent." Smith's district is mostly rural.

It was the fourth time in a year a group of mayors had called for laws they said would combat trafficking in illegal guns. The bill to limit handgun purchases to one a month is aimed at combating so-called straw buyers, who legally purchase firearms in bulk to sell on the black market. The bill hurts only "the gun trafficker who is making money off of someone's misery," Rendell said.

Another bill would require owners to report lost and stolen firearms.

The bills' backers - mostly legislators from Philadelphia and Pittsburgh - dismissed foes' contentions that the bills infringe on rights of law-abiding gun owners. "These are not radical proposals," Rep. Dan Frankel, (D., Allegheny) said. He said each had been enacted by at least one other state, "and not one has been overturned."

Rep. Dwight Evans (D., Phila.), who has led the fight for a package of bills designed to reduce gun violence, predicted the tide was turning in Harrisburg, with Democrats in control of the state House for the first time in a decade and the governor championing the measures.

The bills, however, are stuck in the House Judiciary Committee, where the chairman, Rep. Thomas Caltagirone (R., Berks), has said he does not have the votes to move them to the floor. Evans, just back from his unsuccessful run for mayor, conceded yesterday, "We have more work to do" in the Judiciary Committee.

The upstate mayors at yesterday's news conference, most of them Democrats, said they realized they faced some opposition from lawmakers who represent them. But Mayor Thomas McMahon of Reading said the rise in handgun crimes had undermined government-funded efforts to redevelop aging cities across the state.

Philip R. Goldsmith, president of the group CeaseFire PA, said he sensed "the times are a-changing" for Pennsylvania gun laws. Goldsmith, who is Street's former managing director, warned, "There will be another Virginia Tech."

Street said he knew something of gun culture, having been raised not on the "mean streets of Philadelphia," where the homicide rate is soaring, but on a 110-acre Montgomery County farm where he said he grew up believing all pickup trucks came with gun racks.

He said the proliferation of handguns had a high cost, and cited the wounding of four people on Tuesday night in Philadelphia's Juniata section. Police said the victims were taken to Einstein Hospital where a 28-year-old man was reported in critical condition with stomach and knee wounds. Listed in stable condition were a 21-year-old woman with an ankle wound, a 21-year-old man wounded in the back, and a 24-year-old man who had been shot in the foot. No arrests have been made in those shootings.

Street closed his remarks at the news conference this way: "I believe the day will shortly come when this General Assembly will wake up and say, 'We must do something.' "

Rendell's office said in a news release that in 2005, the rate of gun homicides rose twice as fast in the rest of the state as it did in Allegheny and Philadelphia Counties. Eighty-three percent of all killings in Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, Reading and York were gun killings, the release said; it noted that Philadelphia's homicide rate now exceeds one a day - usually with a firearm. Rendell previously pounded the dais about gun laws during a March 26 speech, saying in part, "No one who is sane and rational would vote against one handgun a month."

The NRA posted news of that speech on its national Web site - along with phone numbers so NRA members could call Rendell and legislators and "respectfully urge them to oppose any gun control measures."