On the night of Saturday, Mar. 18, there was a double homicide in North Philadelphia. On Monday morning, the Philadelphia Inquirer ran the story on the back page of its Region section, two paragraphs long, below the weather.
That example is typical of the Philadelphia media, which portrays the city's many incidents of homicide as episodic. But according to Diane Edbril, the executive director of gun control lobbying group CeasefirePA, gun violence has reached epidemic proportions.
"You really have to look at it from a public health perspective," she said. "$125 million per year is spent on the medical condition of shooting victims."
People like Edbril believe the spread of this epidemic is linked to the spread of guns in Philadelphia. The current legal system allows legal gun purchasers to buy an unlimited number of firearms. In a practice known as "straw purchasing," some of these legal gun purchasers often resell the firearms to criminals.
In the past, straw-purchasers have often avoided legal punishment when guns they've purchased and then reported to be lost turned up at a crime scene. But Operation Safer Streets, the program unveiled by Philadelphia Mayor John Street on Feb. 4, has created new "straw purchasing detective" positions in every police division in the city.
These detectives are specifically focused on tracking guns. According to Deputy Police Commissioner of Internal Affairs and Gun Control Strategies Richard Ross Jr., they will look for suspicious reports of guns being stolen or lost.
Ross cited one occasion where a gun was reported as stolen while its owner was parked in a Wal-Mart parking lot. The detective confronted the owner and said that he was going to check the Wal-Mart parking lot security cameras to verify the owner's story. Although the cameras did not actually exist, the owner confessed to having illegally sold his gun and was arrested.
Champions of Philadelphia's anti-gun violence campaign are currently lobbying for legislation that would limit gun purchases to one per month. The hope is that this limit would cripple the straw-purchasers' buying power.
Pennsylvania law, which does not restrict gun purchases to one every month, presents an obstacle to this goal. Currently, all cities in Pennsylvania must follow state guidelines in terms of gun purchases.
On Mar. 6, State Representative Dwight Evans introduced House Bill 2483 to the state legislature. If passed, the bill would give Philadelphia the "ability to regulate gun policy [separately from] the state," said Evans, who introduced the bill after a 2005 city referendum in which approximately 80 percent of Philadelphia residents stated their desire for this "home rule."
On Mar.19, CeaseFirePA joined with other groups and individuals to participate in a rally against gun proliferation. The rally was held at the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Restoration in Mt. Airy, Philadelphia.
At the rally, Edbril said that gun proliferation is the primary issue that needs to be addressed in the fight against gun violence.
There are "no [murders of] innocent bystanders when fists fly," she said.
Edbril said that if a handgun purchase limit is put into effect, it will disrupt the rate of gun proliferation and drive up the price of guns on the black market.
But not everyone agrees that this approach will be effective in reducing gun violence on the streets of Philadelphia.
"All of the gun violence legislation in the world won't do a thing if the anger is there," Temple professor and journalist Linn Washington said.
