By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
Philadelphia, PA Mayor Jim Kenney is making headlines this week for using the fatal shooting of a Temple University police officer to demand more gun control, including reportedly spreading blame to the state and federal governments for pass restrictive gun laws.
Kenney was quoted by the Philadelphia Tribune declaring, “There’s too many (guns) and they’re too easy to get.”
And then he made this remark: “You can say you back the blue, but if you don’t back gun control and gun availability, you don’t back the blue.”
According to Fox News, “many considered” the remark “tasteless.” The reference was to Officer Christopher Fitzgerald, who was murdered Saturday night, Feb. 18.
Kenney, a Democrat, argued that people must jump through more hoops to purchase wine in Pennsylvania than guns.
“If we control guns like we control the sale of liquor and wine, we’d be in much better shape than we are now,” Kenney said, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. “It’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous.”
Fitzgerald was reportedly gunned down by a suspect identified as 18-year-old Miles Pfeffer, a resident of Bucks County. The gun has not yet been recovered.
Kenney has been using the slaying to bolster his demand for more gun control laws. The Tribune article noted the City of Brotherly Love “has tried to enact its own gun laws, but under state law local municipalities are generally prohibited from passing their own gun restrictions.”
“Last fall,” the newspaper reported, “a city judge blocked an executive order in which Kenney sought to ban guns from recreation centers and playgrounds. Courts have repeatedly rejected Philadelphia’s attempts to overturn the state statue.”
Pennsylvania is one of more than 40 states which have a preemption law, meaning gun control is solely in the hands of the legislature in Harrisburg. State preemption laws around the country have frustrated several mayors over the years, but the laws have proven to provide gun law uniformity, which gun owners support.
