A useful editorial on whether more gun control is the solution in Philly

Here is a piece in the Philly Daily News:

Who freed the cop-killers?

By MICHAEL P. TREMOGLIE
Once again, a Philadelphia police officer has been shot and killed by a criminal who should have been in prison instead of free to commit more mayhem and destruction.
Over the last two years, I've written more than a dozen columns about the murders committed by repeat offenders already convicted of a violent felony (sometimes murder) who spent little or no time in prison.

These columns always ask why those in the criminal system - judges, police, lawyers, probation officers, parole boards, prison officials and elected politicians - aren't held responsible for permitting such people to roam free. Unfortunately, nothing happens - except more people are murdered.

This time it was Philadelphia Police Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski, shot and killed responding to a bank robbery in Port Richmond.

All three suspects in the killing - Howard Cain, Levon T. Warner, Eric Floyd - have convictions for violent felonies.

Warner was sentenced in 1997 to 7 1/2 to 15 years on a robbery charge, one to 5 for possessing an instrument of crime and five to 10 for criminal conspiracy.

Cain was convicted in 1996 of four counts of robbery, carrying firearms without a license and criminal conspiracy. He was sentenced to five to 10 years for each robbery charge, two to four on the other charges. He had also been arrested for aggravated assault, carrying firearms without a license and reckless endangerment.

Floyd was sentenced to five to 10 years in 1995 for robbery and rearrested in 1999 for violating parole. He was released early, and convicted again in 2001 for two robberies in Lancaster.


Yet Mayor Nutter repeats the usual sophistry about guns. Hizzoner said, "That officer was assassinated on the streets of Philadelphia. There was nothing that could have protected him - that weapon penetrates vehicles." . . .

Thanks to Gus Cotey for sending this link to me.