Is the Philly Gun Task Force a form of gun control?

[wcpastures]

Tom Corbett addresses the following article:
http://www.paindependent.com/todays_...gun-task-force



also see: http://cbs3.com/local/Philadelphia.T...ectflash=false

The most chilling part of this article:
Police also plan to ask home owners at times for consent to search their homes without a probable-cause warrant, District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham said Monday.
"If we go to a house, we're going to ask the owner of the house if they will consent to a search for illegal weapons," Abraham said at a news conference. "Any gun that we can find that way is one more gun we can get off the street."

Corbett seems to take pride in this. I don't get it what is he trying to say?

[theo]

"Police also plan to ask home owners at times for consent to search their homes without a probable-cause warrant, District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham said Monday."


That Monday was December 4, 2006.


She isn't even the DA anymore. Have anything more recent, say the last year.

[dunsho]

i don't care how they get illegal guns, just leave legal guns and legal gun owners alone. and no i don't imply running serial numbers on all guns. If the home owner allows the police to search their homes and a gun is found the police can ask, "who's gun is this?"
home owner will say "it's my son"
police "well your son has a felony and can't own a gun" illegal. take it. run tests it, if its stolen return it, if not sell it so i can buy it on the cheap.

[edstephan]

Here you go. Try this

http://www.philly.com/dailynews/loca...cmpid=15585797


Posted on Wed, Mar. 24, 2010
Gun Violence Task Force cuts blasted
By STEPHANIE FARR
Philadelphia Daily News

farrs@phillynews.com 215-854-4225
Philadelphia leaders yesterday blasted a $2 million cut in the city's Gun Violence Task Force and called for the state funding to be restored and the program expanded to other cities.
State Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for governor, said the program was cut by 40 percent in the state budget this year, more than any other program.

He said the funding to keep the task force budgeted at its previous $5 million is there; it's just been redirected. "The question is where do you apply it, not does it exist," he said.

Williams said he'd like to see the program expanded to cities like Allentown, Erie and Pittsburgh. "This, along with education - that means education and safety - should be the first two areas that we provide coverage," he said.

District Attorney Seth Williams said his office has had to bear the cost of the shortfall by using asset-forfeiture funds, which come from ill-gotten cash and goods seized by police.

"Unless I hit the Powerball or find money in a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, the money will dry up," he said. "We've been decreasing these asset-forfeiture funds for years."

Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey said the task force is crucial in tracing the origin of recovered firearms and tracking straw-purchasers, who buy guns for people who can't legally do so. He credited the task force with helping police reduce a backlog of ballistic evidence from more than 6,000 items to about 960. "It's incredibly important, with the amount of gun violence we have in the city," he said.

Since its creation in 2006, the task force has seized 743 firearms and convicted 157 perpetrators, Williams said


So they are still wasting our money, Just not as much
An OC Activist and 1 of the 3%
Ed Stephan

[edstephan]

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/br...ask_force.html

Posted on Tue, Mar. 23, 2010
City lawmen: Restore state funding for gun task force
By Vernon Clark

INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

State Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams, joined with top Philadelphia law enforcement officials, Tuesday called for restoring $2 million in state funding for the Philadelphia Gun Violence Task Force.

"This program doesn't need to be cut," Williams said. "It needs to be replicated. It needs to replicated in Allentown, Erie, Harrisburg and other communities" plagued by gun violence.

At a news conference at the Philadelphia Police Administration Building, Williams (D., Phila.) noted that in 2005 he secured, with the help of then-state Sen. Vince Fumo, a $800,000 state grant for the pilot program for the gun violence task force.

In 2006, that grant became a $5 million line item in the state's general fund budget and the funding remained until the 2009-2010 fiscal year.
Kevin Harley, a spokesman for the Attorney General's Office, said the $2 million cut was made by the governor's office and approved by the legislature. He said an additional $30,000 cut to the program has been proposed for the next fiscal year.

"This has been an extremely effective law enforcement program in getting guns off the street," Harley said.
Williams, who has declared his candidacy for governor, was joined by Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey, District Attorney R. Seth Williams and Brian Grady, head of the special operations unit of the District Attorney's Office.

The senator said the group's work has resulted in 1,207 investigations, the seizure of 743 firearms, the arrest of more than 400 people, and 157 convictions for gun various crimes. Those convictions included straw purchasers, someone who buys a firearm for a person prohibited by law from possessing a gun.
The task force is composed of special investigators and veteran prosecutors from the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office, working with Philadelphia police.

Ramsey said he strongly supported the effort to restore the funding.
"When I came we had more than 6,000 items of ballistic evidence that was part of our backlog. Now we have less than 1,000," Ramsey said, crediting a large part of the reduction to the work of the task force.
"Now is not the time to reduce funding the gun violence task force," Seth Williams said. "This is a program that works. This is something in our criminal justice system that is beneficial." "There are too many street corners in Philadelphia that are littered with teddy bears and balloons for the young lives that have been lost and cut short," the district attorney added.


Contact staff writer Vernon Clark at 215-854-5717 or vclark@phillynews.com.

[freesoul]

wow is that true- almost $21 MILLION to get less than 800 guns off the street and 157 convictions?

Interesting that Corbett is associating himself with Federal inmate 62033-066 aka Vince Fumo even mentioning his name and giving him credit in this boondoggle.

I wish more folks were educated on their constitutional rights and to not consent to searches ever, ever, ever. One would think that at $5K per student per year for Philadelphia that they would be taught the importance of the Constitution...but I digress

[wcpastures]

Another thing that really gets me is that he openly admits working with a convicted criminal! And thinks he deserves some sort of recognition for it!

[7998]

wow is that true- almost $21 MILLION to get less than 800 guns off the street and 157 convictions?

Interesting that Corbett is associating himself with Federal inmate 62033-066 aka Vince Fumo even mentioning his name and giving him credit in this boondoggle.

I wish more folks were educated on their constitutional rights and to not consent to searches ever, ever, ever. One would think that at $5K per student per year for Philadelphia that they would be taught the importance of the Constitution...but I digress

$21,000,000 for 743 guns?!?!?!? Thats $28,263.80 per firearm. Thats one expesive Hi-Point. Now if you offered a $500 per buyback you could buy-back 42,000 Jennings or what have you.
Just another example of our hard earned sweated for dollars going to some corrupt B.S.

[mak47]

Corbett was part of this too? I've been thinking I'd still support him in the general election if Rohrer doesn't win the primary but the more I learn about him, the more I have to even reconsider that. This guys a joke.

[Whiskey Reb]

Corbett was part of this too? I've been thinking I'd still support him in the general election if Rohrer doesn't win the primary but the more I learn about him, the more I have to even reconsider that. This guys a joke.

I'm glad people are seeing it. There is a problem though. Noone who likes their guns wants Onorato in office.

It angers me immensely that in a critical election like this one, the Republican leadership (if that is what you can call them) tried to shove this guy down our throats without a primary vote by just declaring him the candidate....as though they were so wise that they knew he was the only one who could get it done. Now we see that this favorite son is the moral runt of the litter, so how can anyone who values conscience and principle possibly support this guy?

If this is the party leaders' idea of the strongest possible candidate, It's time to realize that their judgement is out in left field and they need to be replaced as well.

On the other hand, we have one of the best candidates imaginable in Sam Rohrer, yet the party won't get behind him (I don't even want to say what I think is the reason why). Another reason why the party needs a thorough routing.