"Dave Witmarsh" wrote in message
news:g69ir3lsbe64bdegc17o2lve7209o9fl28@4ax.com...
> On Sun, 17 Feb 2008 17:23:55 -0700, "Seth Hammond"
> wrote:
>
>>Hey, I'm sorry your masters won't let you have guns.
>
> Hey look - Lesley Seth is yet another demented merkin who doesn't have
> the sense to question the crap that the NRA feeds him
> What a maroon!
>
> Now calm down Lesley, it's only a bunch of dead merkins.
>
> --
Posted on Wed, Oct. 17, 2007
NRA president to Philadelphia: Gun control laws are not the solution
By Andrew Maykuth
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
Message from the National Rifle Association to Philadelphia: We're armed. No
harm. Get used to it.
The day after crime victims marched in Philadelphia to demand stronger
gun-control laws, the president of the NRA spoke to law students in
Wilmington tonight and denounced efforts to combat crime by restricting gun
ownership.
"Philadelphia doesn't need any new anti-gun laws to combat the lawless,"
said John C. Sigler, a Delaware lawyer who was appointed president of the
firearm-advocacy organization this year. "They simply need to enforce the
laws they already have."
Speaking to students at the Widener University School of Law, Sigler, a
former Dover police captain and Navy submarine veteran, delivered a
hard-line argument: He said gun-control laws don't work and are not the
solution to violent crime.
"If Philadelphia wants to stop the killing, they've got to make criminals
pay the penalty," he said.
Sigler said the primary imperative for lawmakers is to "first, do no harm."
He said gun-control laws harm law-abiding citizens rather than violent
criminals.
Sigler's speech drew a mixed response from the audience of about 75 students
and faculty, many of whom said they were from Philadelphia, which has
received extensive national media attention for its escalating homicide
rate.
"I don't see any evidence that the NRA has made us safer," said Alan
Garfield, a professor. That prompted a pointed response from Sigler, who
recited the organization's historic efforts to teach gun safety.
One student from Philadelphia wondered if there was not room for compromise
on an issue that has polarized Pennsylvania's legislators on an urban-rural
chasm.
"Isn't there room for moderation in this debate?" asked third-year-law
student ...nthony. "Can't there be sensible gun laws that prevent
criminals from access to guns?"
Sigler saw little room to negotiate.
"My experience tells me that criminals don't obey laws," said Sigler. "We
don't need more laws. We need to lock up the criminals . . .. Pennsylvania
has all the laws it needs."
In an interview after his speech, Sigler said lawmakers promote gun-control
laws because "it's easy and in some cases it's intellectually dishonest . .
..
"They need to step up to the plate and say enough is enough, my constituents
are dying and we need to stop that. And to stop that, you need to take the
bad guys, put them in jail and you leave them there. If they come back out,
and do it again, you put them back in again for twice as long," he said.
He said the public must accept the cost of fighting crime.
"If it means building more prisons, then build more prisons," Sigler said.
The 61-year-old Sigler's speech at the invitation of several student
organizations was a homecoming: He graduated from the Widener law school in
1987, and was a Republican state legislator in Delaware after retiring from
the police force in 1991. He now practices corporate law. He is serving a
one-year appointment as head of the NRA, a position most famously held by
actor Charlton Heston.
He was also not the first NRA official to direct remarks at Philadelphia.
In August, NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre spoke in Ames, Iowa,
and blamed Philadelphia's murder rate on lax law enforcement rather than the
proliferation of guns.
"You want to kill people, go to Philadelphia, where only a third of all
murders will even be arrested," LaPierre was quoted by the Iowa State Daily
as telling a rally.
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