“Falling short of 10,000 men” campaign to retake Philadelphia's crime-ridden streets fails.

[jody]

A vast, unarmed crime patrol has yet to come together.

Nine months after the 10,000 Men movement was launched with great fanfare, the organization that vowed to mount a massive campaign to retake Philadelphia's crime-ridden streets has fielded only four patrol units totaling about 200 men.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

"This whole notion that this organization would essentially be a quasi-military organization that went from neighborhood to neighborhood - that whole depiction was never what our goal was," said radio personality E. Steven Collins, one of about 10 men who still meet monthly to plan the group's activities.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

It's true that the 10,000 Men movement had multiple missions from the start, and its overarching goal was to encourage African American men to become more involved in their communities and with their families. But its novel call for street patrols of unarmed civilians was what attracted national attention, and what raised the most worries.

Some law-enforcement officials and Mayor Nutter expressed concern that untrained - and unvetted - members of foot patrols might come into conflict with armed gang members and corner drug dealers, and the organization decided to take a cautious approach, Bond said.

How can unarmed citizens retake their communities from armed gangs when an armed police has failed?

Is it time for the governor to declare martial law and activate the national guard to fight armed gangs?

[AndyTiedye]

1. The National Guard Has a Previous Engagment

[villager]

2. Jody -- obviously we disagree strongly on threads here, but I am all ears on this subject

...since L.A. has many of the same problems.

How do you reclaim the streets -- urban streets -- from armed gangs?

Seriously?

I don't think "more guns for everyone else" is quite the answer. But that's just me (and my particular life experiences), and it will provoke howls here, and let's not snark at each other.

The National Guard?

How do we, as a society, do it?

Can we agree gangs shouldn't have guns -- prior to them killing innocent people I mean, and being locked away after the fact?

[jody]

3. Most gang members cannot legally possess firearms today. SCOTUS says government is not obligated to

protect a citizen unless she/he is in custody.

Obviously in Philadelphia, police are not doing very well in preventing violent crime and that led community leaders to try to create a 10,000 man UNARMED group to protect their families.

Looks like the citizens have few choices among which are:
- Surrender to the gangs
- Arm themselves and fight the gangs
- Leave the community

Do you have any other alternatives?

[villager]

7. When you say "arm themselves and fight the gangs," are you envisioning an all-out street war?

It's dicey turf, here, since no one wants to arbitrarily give the police too much power.

Still, if we expect them to protect us -- how about any known gang member caught "packing" subject to immediate arrest?

Right. If they're felons -- never mind that Scalia-inspired lawsuit to change this -- they're not supposed to have guns anyway. What if they're known gang members, but haven't committed any felonies?

Can we agree the public has an interest in deciding who gets to run around brandishing guns? And who doesn't?

[tburnsten]

8. If they are habitual substance abusers

or people with violent tendencies, or domestic abusers, then they have made their way onto the prohibited list, even minus a felony. I'm not real clear on the violence (non-domestic) bit, but I believe that getting a few assault charges will lead to someone getting themself on the prohibited list at least temporarily. I don't think he was talking about full on urban warfare against gangs, however beautifully effective it might turn out to be, it is still wrong. tiny civil wars are not anything to look forward to, however much the individuals (gang members) who created the situation need to be removed. I feel safe saying that what he means is just that citizens have a choice of either surrendering to the fact that gangs run their community, because the police are not very effective at driving out gangs or preventing them from committing the crimes that make them such a priority, and are worthless at protecting individual people in individual cases. Or they can leave their hometowns, and more or less go start a new life somewhere else. For some people that may be an attractive option, but not for many, and lots of people, especially in gang-ridden areas, do not have the income or level of educational attainment to be able to just up and relocate with anything resembling ease.

The final option is to pursue defensive firearms training, purchase a weapon suitable for the individual and their families needs, practice for the worst but hope for the best and just be ready in case they ever do end up in a bad situation where they need to protect themselves while the police are on the way. I remember one story about a couple in San Francisco or San Diego who had some dude come crashing into their home in the wee hours one night and the police took hours to get there. Not all response times are going to be that bad, but they will never be measured in tens of seconds either, which is what they need to be for the ensured safety of the person in need of assistance. It sucks, and I've never heard an officer be happy about it but they are here to take reports and arrest people, not prevent anything. they try but they are not superman and it is impossible for them to protect everyone.

[jody]

11. Many thanks tburnsten for saying what I should have made clear in my post.

:thumbsup: :pals:

[TPaine7]

9. I strongly disagree with much of what you say, but I agree with you here:

Can we agree the public has an interest in deciding who gets to run around brandishing guns? And who doesn't?

Absolutely. I would say that gangs are at war with this country, and each and every one of their members should be disarmed.

Just brainstorming, off the top of my head I would say that

1) Gangs are terrorist organizations, at war with the United States. Captured gang members, being virtual prisoners of war, can be held until rehabilitated or until their gang ceases to exist. I'm talking Krips, Bloods, Hells Angels, Monguls, Vice Lords, . . . . I would put them to work building infrastructure and televise the great bad asses at work. Not so much for humiliation, as for education of gangster wannabees. I would organize them into groups and have them compete on time, quality, degree of difficulty on jobs. (I know you can't televise ordinary prisoners of war, but these are illegal combatants. (No torture or other Bush BS, or course, and full due process before imprisonment).
2) Prisons must be places where rapes, abuse, beatings, killings, and criminal education cannot take place. Technology should be used to this end.
3) Prisons must be places where people have to behave civilly and responsible in order to survive. They should have to work to earn food, water, privileges, visits.
4) Release should be dependent on having passed courses in life skills. Also, there are machines that can supposedly detect the intent to deceive. Passing a battery of test questions could be a prerequisite to release (or you wait until your gang ceases to exist). You would at least have to intend to do right.
5) There must be carrots as well as sticks. We have to invest in urban youth by making their neighborhoods safe and giving them realistic paths to legitimate success.
6) Government can't do everything, but it should do what it can to foster community and volunteerism. Social forces mold behavior in ways non-totalitarian governments can only dream of.
7) We should seek ways to be less materialistic. Envy (and, of course, actual need) drives lots of crime. When I was in France, I got the distinct impression that how much you made meant less to them and community meant more.

[jody]

12. Agree "Gangs are terrorist organizations" so why are we in Iraq & Afghanistan while we're losing the

war on terror in our inner cities.

"Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye." Mat 7:5

I wish Obama and McCain would tell us how they plan to defeat our homegrown terrorist organizations in our inner cities.

[villager]

14. some interesting points in this sub-thread, too. Prisons, absolutely,

need to be reformed -- they become "strategy refinement centers" for gangs now.

And obviously, the idea of being a "gangster" needs to be made way less romantic/attractive (keeping in mind, of course, that those who abuse power -- like the Bushistas -- will call anyone they see fit a "gangster." Bit of projection there...)

And if we can at least agree that by God not *everyone* should have complete unfettered access to firearms, there may be a basis for further discussion...

[jody]

16. I don't personally know anyone among my several thousand pro-RKBA friends that has ever proposed

allowing *everyone* to have complete unfettered access to firearms.

At the risk of causing a productive thread to become hostile, I must say your statement is a red flag that we pro-RKBA types recognize from previous encounters with gun-grabbers who use emotion rather than facts to try and convince law-abiding citizens to accept bans on handguns and other firearms.

Why don't we return to the basic issue in Philadelphia, how can law-abiding citizens retake their community from gangs that caused local leaders to propose setting up aN "UNARMED militia" to fight violent crime?

[villager]

17. well, hey, the fact that this thread has lasted this long without a flame eruption is amazing!

I'm not waving red flags, but I am often at a loss as to what, if any, restrictions you pro-RKBA folks (see, I'm using your own nouns!) see as reasonable. If we "gun grabbers" (speaking of red flags!) have a counter-proposal, suddenly the whole constitution is out the window.

But the thing is, the basic issue in Philadelphia won't be that different from the basic issue here in Los Angeles, or other places affected by gun violence (which gives us "grabbers" a different perspective on what gun proliferation adds to a community).

Still, perhaps Philly will serve as a kind of lab in terms of responses to gang violence. And obviously, meta-issues, like a thriving economy, etc., will help everywhere...

[tburnsten]

18. Well, as far as restrictions go

we already have some pretty well layed out ones, the only problem is that they are regularly unenforced through things like concurrent sentencing. How much weight does an additional conviction wield if the sentence for it will be served during the sentence for whatever the "more serious" charge is? Can a convict really be in two prison cells at once? If not, then how can they possibly serve two sentences at the same time?

Plus I'd be willing to bet that most of our anti-gang task forces do not get the resources they need to really put the thumbscrews to the gangs and end their reckless behavior. Actually clearing out whole gang sects all at once would probably be the most effective way to capture their assetts of cash, weapons, and drugs, instead of going one by one slowly by slowly and not being able to keep up with the rapid replacement of gang leaders that inevitably happens.

Domestic abuser restrictions are excellent except that in some cases there can be a lack of due process that is very worrisome, since a domestic abuse allegation, sometimes without even an indictment, can utterly devastate an individual's career and life, along with their rights. There is always the spectre of events like a severely unstable person attacking their partner and then calling the police to report that they were assaulted when the partner stops them from landing blows on them. I had a similiar incident with my mom when I was 13, she blew up on me and threw a wooden box full of objects including a coffe mug at my face, I narrowly blocked it with my arm, which was gashed up pretty badly, then she grabbed a coathanger and swung it at my face. I caught her wrist before it hit me and she immediately called the police to report that I was "violent", and despite hearing exactly what happened and seeing the blood dripping off my arm/wrist they told her that she should press charges against me, otherwise nothing would happen. Never mind that she should have been under court orders to seek treatment for whatever her problem was. Do you think I should have lost my right to be in physical control of even one round of ammunition from that incident, or does that sound more like I barely managed to prevent serious injury and probable disfigurement and then had the police wrongfully say I should be charged? Had that exact same incident played out with me as an adult, I would have lost many, many rights and lost numerous career paths. Not to mention that no one wants to hire, date, or marry someone with a domestic charge in their past, no matter how ridiculous and wrong it was. Charging guidelines need to be adapted from the ancient, "whoever calls first" or "charge the man and call it a night" approaches that are so prevalent.

I am not sure how familiar with the reasons people become prohibited you are, but I think if you looked into it then you would see that realistically without occupying a "Minority Report" world our current guidelines are as good as can be, it's just enforcement and non-gun related efforts that will actually help reduce our violent crime. Violent crime goes up in high crime areas, not high-weapon saturation areas.

[villager]

19. I'm sorry to hear about your mom. Having a volatile Ex, who recently got into a

dust-up with my oldest son (not quite as bad as yours, but she was exhibiting some of her all-too-familiar behavior), there's no question that there needs to be due process in these domestic abuse situations.

But once process is due, so to speak, the restriction, as I believe we agree, is a good one. (Having known a friend of my parents, murdered by his unstable wife, with their household gun).

Also, no question, we need to divert much more money from the war machine to domestic uses -- yes, like anti-gang task forces...

[tburnsten]

21. looks like all we had to do was slow down

and take the time to figure out we don't have such drastically different views on prohibited persons after all. My mom has always been a highly emotional woman, I think what started that little debacle was me saying I'd clean my room at the end of the chapter I was reading. We get along fine now that I'm an adult and out of the house, but for sure she still has swings of emotion where she makes very poor judgements. Like marrying the parent of a student who went to Hyde School in Bath with my younger brother. The school is a character education school, except for the scholarship students the majority of kids who go there are rich problem children, the question everyone gets asked is "why are you here?", so she should have known that with a daughter going to school there, and him being divorced, there were some pretty clear signs that she should be pretty careful. She married him after a year or so of knowing him and a year and a half or so later was on the road to divorce, after he had given her a concussion and she discovered he owed the IRS tons of money, despite being a partner in an architecture firm.

Moral of the story is that our protection from abuse laws do mean well, but in practice they often fall short. Once someone has a restraining order the courts and police definitely have a hard time fully protecting the person who needs it, and I just think that if the police can't be there in time to save you, why not just take up recreational shooting so that you have the best card available, a firearm, in case the subject of the order decides he or she doesn't like being told not to approach you? Most of the time no one will be harmed at all in a defensive gun use, and despite their effectiveness as a deterrent, roughly 80% of people shot with a handgun survive. Not sure if that figure includes accidents or just military/police figures, but I read it in a book written by two officers who were studying the effectiveness of different handgun caliber and ammunition combinations to help agencies figure out what was needed to get the most effective equipment to ensure their officers came home, and also for firearm owners because what works for the police is usually a good starting point for non-LEO defensive use as well.

[jody]

22. My standard reply, please tell me what additional laws you would pass in addition to

18 USC 922 and 26 USC 5861.

I ask that because those who would infringe upon RKBA are often ignorant of existing laws and those laws are accepted by nearly all who support RKBA.

I agree with you that the problem is endemic to most large inner cities. Perhaps that's why SCOTUS said in Heller that law abiding citizens in D.C., Philadelphia, Los Angeles and everywhere have an inalienable right to keep and bear arms for self-defense and other lawful purposes and that right is protected by the Second Amendment.

I agree with you re gangs and firearms which are typically illegal.

IMO, our courts are derelict because they allow convicted criminals to serve sentences for possessing a firearm when committing a crime concurrently with other sentences. In essence, that means a sentence for using a firearm to commit a crime does not exist/

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

20. No one here has ever argued that everyone should have unfettered access to firearms.

I don't know which posts you have been reading that have led you to believe otherwise.

David

[Real_Talk]

15. Amen on the prison reform.

I believe that prison should be the safest place in America. The work should be exhausting and educational. People should fear the work in prison, not the prisoners.

I also think we need to legalize drugs,prostitution and gambling. That will make it tougher for the gangs to survive and also raise the tax revenues to improve education.

We also need to educate people and put them to work in productive jobs. Cities are safer when people have real jobs. Gun violence will largely take care of itself, if we take care of the rest of the stuff.

[jody]

10. I agree with you. My thoughts are influenced by "Promises I Can Keep, Why Poor Women Put Motherhood

Before Marriage" by Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas.

The authors did their research in Philadelphia, PA and Camden NJ in some of the poorest communities in the U.S.

In the last chapter, they point out the shortage of men with minimum qualifications for marriage, among which was no gang involvement.

That book and the failed community efforts in the OP suggest to me that the community is unable or unwilling to take control.

IMO LEO cannot protect a community unless citizens get involved with such things as community watch, anonymous witness programs, etc.

I don't know how to solve Philadelphia's violent crime problem but if we can't make inner cities safe for citizens, then why are we trying to establish safe communities in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Sorry for not being more specific. jody

ON EDIT ADD:
A pox on those who hype the worldwide war on terror and homeland security to the exclusion of community problems!

IMO people in Philadelphia are more concerned with local terrorists and their HOME’s security.

[pipoman]

4. I believe this is the first thing I have seen you write which I fully agree with...

Can we agree gangs shouldn't have guns -- prior to them killing innocent people I mean, and being locked away after the fact?

I suspect we would disagree on some of the solutions, re gun control, but this is a start, huh?

[Irreverend IX]

5. How to eliminate gangs?

Legalize drugs and they will instantly dry up and die. Isn't it obvious? And isn't it also obvious that the money and sweat spent on anti-gun campaigning would be better spent fighting for drug legalization, which would do more to cut down on criminal violence than every possible gun restriction combined?

[villager]

6. Certainly, ending prohibition would help. But so much of the pathology

has to do with damaged sense of place, turf, desperation, etc...

At some point, the the fact that man-boys are packing easily available weapons -- and killing each other with them (as happened to one of the more cheerful, promising students in one of my classes, once) will have to be addressed...

[SteveM]

13. One city's response...

http://www.wtnh.com/Global/story.asp?S=6642501

I don't know what came of this armed bicycle patrol, but studying such would be a good place to start in determining whether patrols are effective.

[Callisto32]

23. I'm looking for some insight

or just some hard facts from someone with more knowledge/experience with these things than I am. I have a number of questions about gangs and the things related thereto.

Something that I have noticed is that every time gangs come up the point arises that these groups are so large because they provide a sense of family or belonging to the members. However, there are lots of groups that do things that are positive for society, like those that get groups of youths together to to volunteer work. Consistently, we hear stories about how these groups have a hard time getting people to help out, while the criminal gangs never seem to have a tough time recruiting. This makes me wonder how much of it is "I feel like I belong here" and how much is "I feel like I can get all the stuff I want." Maybe that is an insensitive way to think about it, but if the real goal is belonging, can't that be had much more safely through positive volunteerism-type groups than through these gangs with gigantic murder/injury rates?

Another question I have about these gangs involves the codes of conduct that we hear about in news stories/documentary works/television specials. One specific gang, I can't remember which, was reported to have a code of conduct along the lines of "don't disrespect other members, don't hurt other members, don't steal from other members." It was basically the golden rule, but only applied to other members of the gang. I wonder if those codes are held out of a sense of honor, or out of fear of repercussions. If it is the first, I wonder why the people in the gang are happy to extend basic human courtesy to other members of the gang, but feel no compulsion to do so to everyone else.

I really have a difficult time putting myself in these guys' shoes. Any help or explanation would be appreciated.

[jody]

24. I also seek answers to the questions you pose. A friend is principal of an inner city school.

He asked his brightest male student what college he planned to attend and what would be his major?

The young man said, "I'm going to sell drugs."

My friend said the boy was in prison within two years of graduating at the top of his class.

I don't know the answer to fighting violent crime but what we are doing is not working.

The issue of gangs, violent crime is inseparable from the right to keep and bear arms for self-defense. If the threat of violent crime did not exist, law-abiding citizens would not need to exercise their RKBA.

The pathetic thing is this discussion of violent crime, gangs, threatened communities and RKBA is banished to the Guns forum as though violent crime does not exist.

In the meantime, Obama and McCain are trying to out macho each other in fighting insurgents in their own country while ignoring law-abiding citizens cowering in their homes in inner cities.

:puke:

[jeepnstein]

25. You gotta drain the swamp.

Gang bangers don't live in a vacuum. They have family members and friends who are enabling the lifestyle. Any solution to the problem needs to separate the gangs from the enablers. Just as a guerilla needs a willing populace to support them, gangs rely on a network of enablers to keep them alive. Yes, families would be torn apart in some cases. Most municipalities don't have the means or the desire to see this task accomplished.

Marches, ad campaigns, and public proclamations mean nothing to a gang member. They understand incarceration, hunger, and shunning.

[jody]

26. RE: "Most municipalities don't have the means or the desire to see this task accomplished." If that

is true, then what policies and programs do you believe should be used to fight gangs?

It seems to me that gangs are terrorists just as real as Al-Qaeda except they are home-grown, in our inner cities, and expanding.

Why aren't Obama and McCain talking about how they intend to fight terrorists in our inner cities?

[jeepnstein]

27. It just not flashy or exciting work...

The way to get to a gang is to cut out it's local support. That means strictly enforcing traffic, loitering, and drug laws. I despise forfeitures but they are a good tool for driving a wedge between property owners and lodgers. You do seizures on homes where drugs are sold, you seize cars, and yes I understand that it will be unpopular with some poor folks who work very hard to maintain a household. They need to protect their assets by distancing themselves from the gangs. You've got to tell the locals why all of a sudden you're doing it and then face the blow back from the community. In some cases you'll find that the community will come the gang's defense because it is made of of their own kids.

[jody]

28. Thanks for you observation. Where are Obama & McCain on this topic? n/t

[jeepnstein]

29. Nowhere to be found.

You're on your own. The government isn't going to do a darned thing about gangs and violence except disarm lawful citizens. It's a bi-partisan effort to get us all killed.