Will cracking down on illegal guns reduce crime?

Last year, Philadelphia police arrested thousands of people for carrying illegal guns, a record number. Yet, less than half are convicted.

There are many forms of illegal gun possession: You can’t carry a gun if you’ve been convicted of certain previous crimes, or conceal or transport a gun without a license. In Pennsylvania, you can carry a gun without a permit, as long as it is visible. But within the city limits, you must have a license to carry any gun, even if it’s in plain sight.

Recently, the District Attorney’s Office said it didn’t believe that pursuing charges of illegal gun possession would reduce shootings. We asked two local experts: Will cracking down on illegal guns reduce crime?

By Joe Stine

The District Attorney’s Office recently stated that: “We do not believe that arresting people and convicting them for illegal gun possession is a viable strategy to reduce shootings.” Instead, it says that the focus should be on solving shootings after they happen.

As a former Philadelphia police officer, I heartily disagree.

During my 25 years on the force, I saw firsthand what can happen when people carry illegal weapons. The first homicide I responded to as a sergeant still haunts me.

It was at a bar, where two men had been sitting apart but facing each other for three hours. They never spoke a word to each other or came in physical contact. But one was carrying an illegal gun and didn’t like the way the other was looking at him. So he got up, walked over to the other man, and shot him in the head.

It turns out the victim had been squinting at him because earlier that day, another man with an illegal gun had pistol-whipped him during an armed robbery and broken his glasses.

Had the men carrying these illegal guns been arrested, the victim would be alive and a murderer would not be spending his life in jail.

Throughout my career, I responded to multiple crimes like this. Many lives would have been saved had people carrying illegal guns been arrested before they commit worse crimes.

In Pennsylvania, you can carry a gun without a permit, as long as it is visible (perhaps in a hip holster). But within the city limits of Philadelphia, you must have a license to carry any gun, whether it is out in the open or concealed; without a license, that’s an illegal gun. Some have argued this extra requirement in Philadelphia is racist. But if that’s where most of the crime is happening, it makes sense to have additional laws that could help reduce that crime.

» READ MORE: A Philly committee spent 18 months examining the city’s gun violence crisis. Here’s what it found.

Removing illegal guns from the street is a form of “proactive policing” — i.e., policing designed to prevent worse crimes before they happen. The goal is to prevent crime instead of reacting to it. The thinking is simple: Why spend precious resources trying to put back together lives shattered by violent crime if you can find ways of preventing those crimes?

Of course, there are problems with proactive policing. For one, it is difficult — or maybe even impossible — to determine how effective it is. How do you count or even know how many crimes you have prevented? In the past, we were unwilling to sacrifice the lives and well-being of victims to find out. Now, we can only speculate how the lack of emphasis on proactive policing is having an effect. Last year’s homicides set a record, increasing by more than 10% to 562 deaths. Did the de-emphasis on arresting people for carrying illegal guns play a role?

Some have argued yes. Although hard numbers can be tough to come by, research suggests that illegal guns may be involved in 40% to 60% of crimes.

If removing illegal guns has no or little effect on violent crime, why then do we constantly hear that the answer to the violent crime problems in our cities is to remove the scourge of guns?

Let’s not wait until illegal guns are used to commit a robbery, carjacking, or homicide. Let’s try to prevent these crimes before they happen.

Joe Stine is a former Philly police officer and chief of police in New Britain Township.

By Reuben Jones

Gun violence permeates our existence, and we need solutions, now.

Mothers are mourning. Community members are demanding action and answers. Teddy bear memorials, RIP murals, and airbrushed T-shirts are prominent fixtures in the Philadelphia landscape.

As a gun violence prevention advocate, I understand the urgency. I’ve stood at City Hall demanding that the mayor end the gun violence crisis. I’ve testified at City Council hearings about strategies for gun violence prevention. I’ve answered the phone in the middle of the night after a tragedy. I have lost loved ones, friends, and mentees. I have marched, rallied, and protested. And through it all, my advocacy has always been focused on prevention and saving lives.

But as an abolitionist and social justice advocate who wants to end mass incarceration, I caution against directing resources toward illegal guns, instead of working to improve the homicide clearance rate (which is under 50%). A focus on illegal guns could encourage police officers to stop people at random, looking for any guns at all. And we know who they will disproportionately stop.

An increase in “stop-and-frisk” will only further stigmatize Black men and make them a target for the criminal justice system, or worse. And it will add to the already huge racial disparity in our prisons, where 90% of the people are Black and brown.

I understand that people want to feel safe. But we can’t arrest our way out of this crisis, and there is no magical overnight cure. We have to invest in a long-term strategy that will produce sustainable results.

I believe that we can pursue public safety while protecting the rights of community members at the same time. They are not mutually exclusive. The only thing that will stem the tide of violence is investing in disenfranchised communities to help make people feel like they are a valued member of this city.

That means treatment for the trauma they have lived through. An improved education system. Actual jobs with sustainable wages. Real affordable housing. Access to resources and opportunities.

We need to teach conflict resolution in schools. We need grief counseling and therapists in the schools. We need restorative justice practices where the perpetrator can be held accountable in a way that the victim can heal and be made to feel whole again. We need to help communities move past long-standing conflicts based on geography and old wounds that never healed.

» READ MORE: Philly gun arrests are on a record pace, but convictions drop under DA Krasner

I agree that we have to simultaneously work on immediate solutions. But arresting people for simple gun possession will not reduce gun violence. In fact, a study out of New York City found that when NYC cops ended “stop-and-frisk,” the homicide rate decreased. In 2017, the American Civil Liberties Union released a study that covered 4,597 stops of pedestrians by police. Of those, 3,150 (nearly 70%) of the people stopped were Black. And police only recovered 20 guns.

Nobody is stopping and frisking people in rural Pennsylvania, where children get guns on their 8th birthday. They aren’t stopping and frisking people in Chestnut Hill.

The thing that drives homicides is the mindset to commit violence, not simply possession of a gun. It comes from a person devaluing the life of another person. That’s what we have to stop. If we change that, then I think we will begin to see a different trend.

Reuben Jones is the executive director of Frontline Dads and the campaign and policy lead for Dignity and Power Now.