We have have previously noted that for The Philadelphia Inquirer, unless a shooting or murder victim is an ‘innocent,’ someone already of note, or a cute little white girl, the editors of the Inquirer don’t care, because, to be bluntly honest about it, the murder of a young black man in Philadelphia is not news.

Well, another ‘innocent’ has been shot, though not killed, so the Inky is all over it.

11-year-old shot in West Philadelphia late Wednesday night

Police have yet to release a description of the shooter, who they believe fired 30 shoots along 52nd Street in West Philadelphia on Wednesday night.

by Beatrice Forman | Thursday, July 20, 2023 | 7:56 AM EDT

An 11-year-old girl and a man were struck during a shootout in West Philadelphia late Wednesday night.

Note that there were two victims in this case, an 11-year-old girl and a 32-year-old man, but only the child is mentioned in the headline.

Police said the shooting happened around 11:30 p.m. Wednesday and spans several intersections along 52nd Street, where they found a trail of shell casings, 6ABC reported. The girl was struck in the hip while shopping while shopping with her mother, according to police.

“We of course believe that since she’s only 11 years old, she was struck by stray gunfire,” Chief Inspector Scott Small told reporters.

To briefly summarize, the Philadelphia Police found about 30 ejected shell casings, in “clusters,” near the 52^nd and Market Streets SEPTA elevated train station, as well as nearby Ludlow Street. The Police are unsure whether the injured man was the intended target, or another bystander.

There is no description of the shooter at this time. Police are checking city-operated real-time crime cameras for footage.

The Police will have to get lucky! With a high of 82ºF and low of 70ºF in Philly yesterday, odds will still be high that the shooters were wearing hooded sweatshirts and masks!

These cameras, which have been installed near recreation centers and schools among other places, were first meant to be a crime deterrent, but have since become an important part of shooting investigations.

A deterrent? Thirty or so shell casings would seem to indicate a gang, oops, sorry, ‘street group,’ shoot-out.

As we noted yesterday, the George Soros-sponsored, police-hating defense attorney now serving as Philadelphia’s chief prosecutor, is asking for “bipartisan, common-sense gun control legislation,” so I have to ask: just what would the legislation Larry Krasner wants have done to stop this gun battle? He wants Pennsylvania to pass a “red flag” law, under which a complaint that a firearms owner was agitated or under some stress could have his firearms confiscated, supposedly temporarily, without him ever being charged with or convicted of any crime, and to restrict private sales of firearms between individuals to require that they, too, be subject to background checks.

Is anyone here really naïve enough to believe that either of these laws, had they been in place, would have stopped a gang ‘street group’ gunfight? The probability that, if the gang ‘street groups’ members are identified, the shooters are under 18, and legally barred from owning or possessing handguns is pretty high. But whether they are legally minors or otherwise, the fact that they were willing to engage in a gunfight in the first place tells us that obeying the law is not particularly high on their list of priorities.