The recent spike in Philadelphia's murder rate has once again placed the issue of gun control on the public agenda, with Mayor John Street seeking to enact tougher laws for the city.
From Jan. 1 to March 28, 86 homicides were reported, more than in any other year since 1998. Seventy of those killings were committed with a gun.
During a similar period last year, 80 people were murdered, 65 with a firearm. In 2003, the city had 67 homicides through March 28, compared with 64 in 2002, 55 in 2001 and 81 in 2000 in the same time frame.
Additionally, about 28,000 residents have permits to carry concealed weapons, a number that has become a chief concern of the city in addressing gun crimes.
Street spokeswoman Deborah Bolling said that the mayor is looking to change the laws to make it more difficult to obtain guns and permits to carry them.
Bolling said that "we issue permits with alarming frequency because, for the commonwealth, they are mostly used for hunting. But in Philly they are not used for hunting. They are used for violent crimes."
As a result of the 1995 Pennsylvania Uniform Firearms Act, Philadelphia and all other muncipal governments lost the authority to enact their own gun laws.
State law allows anyone over 21-years-old without a criminal record to obtain a permit to carry a concealed handgun.
The mayor has been working with Gov. Ed Rendell to create a task force to look into those issues, Bolling said.
However, curbing the number of permits to carry guns will not necessarily reduce the violence.
"The issue is not the legal issuance of guns but the illegal distribution of guns," Bolling said.
Police officials agreed, saying that the weapons used in a vast number of gun crimes are acquired through straw purchases -- buying firearms from a licensed distributor and then reselling them on the street.
"There is no chain of accountability" for these guns, Bolling said. "We want to address that chain of accountability."
Although city leaders were moved to action when 11 people were killed in the city over the March 11-13 weekend, the crime rate has since fallen. Six murders occurred between March 29 and April 5.
Philadelphia Police spokesman Cpl. Jim Pauley said the crime surge is beginning to level out.
"The Police Department is completely aware of what is going on, and murders are down over the past week," Pauley said. "Not this weekend, but the weekend before, there were no murders."
He also said that the department attempts to separate itself from outside controversy regarding gun control.
"The Police Department has a job to do, regardless of what is reported in [the] newspaper or any politics," he said. "The bottom line is, we have a job to do and we have officers out there that are aware of the latest trends in crime. And of course our goal is to have no crime at all, but it is a tough job."
In 1990, the city recorded 500 murders. The total decreased steadily until 1999, when the number of murders was 292.
Pauley said that this year's murders have taken place throughout the city and have not been concentrated in a single area.
He said that the crime rate in West Philadelphia is in line with rates from past years.
"Crime goes up a little bit, it goes down a little bit, but basically in that area it is about the same," he said. "It fluctuates."
Penn Police Chief Mark Dorsey said that there is no visible increase in gun crime directly on campus, despite the citywide trend.
However, he added that there is a noticeable increase in areas near campus.
"We see it in the surrounding peripheries and areas outside campus," Dorsey said. "We aren't experiencing as much violence as other areas of the city. ... We make a serious effort."
Still, the campus saw one shooting incident earlier this year, at the Bridge: Cinema de Lux. On Feb. 18, four individuals were involved in a shootout outside the theater at 40th and Walnut streets. No one was wounded. Police have charged one person in the incident.
