Tag Archives: #Philadelphia

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Philadelphians are fighting back! When the city cannot protect the people, the people will protect themselves

We have previously noted that the law-abiding people in Philadelphia have been seeking concealed carry permits at a record pace. And we have seen stories about some of the bad guys in Philly being sent untimely to their eternal rewards.

Why are people in the City of Brotherly Love arming themselves? When there are innocent victims being gunned down for no apparent reason, when it’s not just the gang-bangers shooting other gang-bangers, and the city has a George Soros stooge ‘progressive’ District Attorney who likes to set the captives free, a whole lot of Philadelphians have gotten the message: you are on your own!

But today’s surprise is that The Philadelphia Inquirer has actually reported on it!

As more people get guns and carry permits, Philly sees a sharp rise in homicides ruled justified

More people in Philadelphia are legally arming themselves and shooting their armed attackers amid a violent crime spike.

by Mensah M Dean | Monday, June 20, 2022

In May, a South Philadelphia man stepped out of his house for a smoke when police said a gun-wielding man rode up on a bicycle and demanded money. The homeowner dropped his cigarette, pulled out his licensed gun, and fatally shot the would-be robber in the head.

In March, an assistant manager at a Dollar General store in North Philadelphia used his legal gun to shoot a man who police said burst into the store in a ski mask, demanded money, and threatened to kill the cashier. “I’m opening up the register for you, sir,” said the manager, who instead pulled his own handgun and shot the robber in the head, killing him.

The same month, a customer with a carry permit inside Max Food Market in the Yorktown section fatally shot a gunman who tried to rob him while he was playing a video poker machine. “You have to defend yourself,” said Maximo Torres Rodriquez, the store’s owner. “You have to do it.”

The three would-be assailants died from their injuries and in all three cases authorities brought no charges against the shooters. These sorts of deadly clashes in which the intended victims survive and assailants die are rare in Philadelphia, but are becoming more common as a growing number of people have legally armed themselves amid rising numbers of carjackings, shootings, and homicides.

Mr Rodriquez put it exactly right: sometimes “You have to defend yourself. You have to do it.”

Also read: Jennifer Stefano: The case for impeaching Larry Krasner

We’re not supposed to say it, but sometimes a homicide is a public service. When the Dollar General assistant manager shot and killed the would-be robber, perhaps the robber would have been satisfied with the cash and left without hurting anyone, but as crooks get successful, they are also emboldened, and the odds are extremely high that he’d have attempted to knock over another store and another store, and eventually someone would get shot, and possibly killed.

Justified homicides jumped 67% from 2020 to 2021 ― from 12 to 20 according to the Philadelphia Police Department. An additional six have been ruled justified by the department but are awaiting the District Attorney’s Office to sign off. In 2019, there were 10 justified killings, six in 2018 and eight in 2017, the department said.

So far in 2022, victims have shot at least eight armed assailants to death, with more than seven months remaining in the year.

“The total number of shootings and the climate of gun violence has gotten more severe,” said District Attorney Larry Krasner. “So I would expect that there would be more situations involving self-defense.”

As Krasner said, the surge in justified shootings reflects the general rise in gun violence in the city. With unjustified homicides hitting a record total last year, with 562 victims, self-defense killings climbed too, though only slightly as a percentage of all homicides.

Let’s do the math:

  • 2017: 315 murders + 8 justified homicides = 323 total, 2.48% justified.
  • 2018: 353 murders + 6 justified homicides = 361 total, 1.66% justified.
  • 2019: 356 murders + 10 justified homicides = 366 total, 2.73% justified.
  • 2020: 499 murders + 12 justified homicides = 511 total, 2.35% justified.
  • 2021: 562 murders + 26 justified homicides = 588 total, 4.42% justified.
  • 2022: 230 murders + 8 justified homicides = 238 total, 3.48% justified.

The trend worries some analysts and gun-control advocates, who say civilians who buy guns for protection may be putting themselves and others at more risk, not less. They cite studies showing that legally purchased guns are more likely to be fired in accidental shootings, during domestic disputes, and in suicides than in self-defense.

721 West Butler Street. Click to enlarge.

Of course, the Inquirer article let us know that more law-abiding people obtaining weapons is a bad thing, stating that they are more likely to be discharged in accidents, domestic disputes and suicides, offering several paragraphs of statistics.

There is one thing that the article did not include, perhaps because it simply isn’t quantifiable. We have previously published several street scene photographs of Philadelphia, showing how many residents have put themselves in jail, barring up their porches and windows, to try to defend themselves from the thugs. There is an attitude of fear, fear! permeating the city, a fear that at any time your number could come up, and that is due to the city not protecting innocent people. When you have a district attorney like Larry Krasner who largely refuses to prosecute illegal firearm possession cases, who doesn’t like to enforce the laws already on the books, who metes out slaps on the wrists for even violent crimes, coupled with a homicide rate higher than Chicago’s, of course people are going to be worried. People are buying firearms for the protection of their families and themselves because it has become blatantly obvious: the city isn’t protecting them.

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In which Larry Krasner shows us just how much respect he has for the Philadelphia Police!

Sometimes, you just can’t make up this stuff!

Philadelphia’s George Soros stooge ‘progressive’ District Attorney, Larry Krasner, tweeted:

Ahead of Father’s Day, I challenge anyone thinking about picking up a gun unlawfully, think twice, and remember the families gun violence is wrecking. If you are caught by the @PPD, you will be held accountable. Have a peaceful Father’s Day weekend.

The image to the right is a screen capture of Mr Krasner’s original, because it’s highly likely that he’ll delete it. Why? @PPD is not the Philadelphia Police Department’s Twitter account, @PhillyPolice is. @PPD leads to a suspended account.

Mr Krasner’s recent tweet is very much at odds with what he has said before, that he does not believe that arresting people and convicting them for illegal gun possession is a viable strategy to reduce shootings. Perhaps I’m just not edumacated enough, but it seems to me that a guy who’s locked up can’t shoot anyone, that a guy who does not have a firearm cannot shoot someone.

That latter is what the gun grabbers argue, right, and Mr Krasner wants stronger gun control laws, but he won’t enforce the ones already on the books!

There’s a move in Harrisburg by the state House of Representatives to impeach and remove Mr Krasner, but it will fail: while the Republicans have majoritioes in both Houses of the General Assembly, they do not have the requisite 2/3 super majority to remove him from office.

And why should they? In his initial campaign in 2017, Mr Krasner told the voters what he would do, and he was elected by a wide margin. Then in 2021, with plenty of evidence that Mr Krasner was doing exactly what he said he would do, the good people of Philadelphia re-elected him, by a landslide margin. One thing is clear: Philadelphians want a district attorney who will not seriously prosecute criminals.

The city’s last Republican mayor left office when Harry Truman was President of the United States. Seventy straight years of Democratic Party rule has helped turn the City of Brotherly Love into the [insert slang for feces here]hole city that it is today, but the voters simply can’t learn the obvious lesson, that Democratic policies simply do not work.

So, my friends in the state House of Representatives, leave Mr Krasner alone. He is exactly what the good people of Philadelphia want, and he is exactly what the people of Philadelphia deserve.

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Pennsylvania Democrats always double down on policies that have failed in the past

Jennifer Stefano, from her Commonwealth Foundation biography page. Click to enlarge.

I will admit to some surprise that The Philadelphia Inquirer gave OpEd space to Jennifer Stefano, the executive vice president of the Commonwealth Foundation and a fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum. After all, Miss Stefano and the Commonwealth Foundation support “transforming free-market ideas into actionable public policies, we’re ensuring all people can flourish.”

Good luck taxing the rich when they’re gone

Pennsylvanians are moving to red states in search of smaller government, school choice, and lower taxes, writes Jennifer Stefano.

by Jennifer Stefano | Monday, June 13, 2022

Widespread shortages. Economic tumult. Disappearing businesses. When Ayn Rand released her magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged, in 1957, her critics considered it a work of fiction. She did not.

Her art is now imitating life in Pennsylvania. Fiction or not, Rand was prescient.

She predicted a world where government and “looters” (as she called them) exploited producers. A mysterious man named John Galt gets those business owners and workers to leave and recreate a free and fair society elsewhere.

In Pennsylvania, leaders like Gov. Tom Wolf and Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney demonize financially successful individuals, with promises that if the all-powerful government bureaucracy could just take more of their money, our problems would be solved. Wolf, Kenney, and their supporters operate under the misguided belief that bigger government will heal the Earth, defeat racism, and end poverty.

Worthy goals, wrong solutions — and Pennsylvanians know it. While some will wait for November to register their discontent at the ballot box, many are already voting with their feet.

Honestly, I wish I could reproduce the entire thing, but you can read it for yourself if you follow the embedded link. Alas! in my search to see if it had been published elsewhere, I could not find it, and the Inquirer’s articles are hidden behind a paywall; I pay for a subscription so that you don’t have to! However, the inquirer does allow people a few free articles a month, so if you haven’t followed too manty of my links, you might be able to read the whole thing.

Miss Stefano continues to document for us the strong net emigration from the Keystone State, and notes to where Pennsylvanians have been moving, Texas, Arizona and, especially, Florida, all states with lower state taxes and more business-friendly laws and regulations.

It is a familiar story for Philadelphia, where the nearly century-long run of one-party rule and unrealistic policies has sent people fleeing to the suburbs. Now it’s driving them into the waiting arms of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — and the rest of Pennsylvania is following.

Miss Stefano’s points are a bit too economic specific, not that they are not valid, but such ignores the rest of Philadelphia’s horrible mismanagement, as made plainly obvious by the city’s homicide rate. As of 11:59 PM EDT on Sunday, June 12th, 227 Philadelphians had been sent untimely to their eternal rewards, and if the South Street shootings made for big headlines, only three of those victims, at least one the criminal who shot the first bullets, actually died. In the week since then, nine more people were butchered in the city’s mean streets.

A poll by the Pew Charitable Trust found that 70% of Philadelphians believe that public safety is the most important issue facing the city, and also noted that in the very diverse overall, but internally highly segregated, black and Hispanic residents felt unsafe at significantly higher rates than whites.

The Inquirer’s Editorial Board was appalled, though seemingly more appalled that whites didn’t feel as unsafe as others:

What does it mean to be a segregated city in a gun violence crisis? According to the Controller’s Office’s gun violence mapping toll, the zip codes of Rittenhouse Square and Chestnut Hill, where about 70% of the population is white, haven’t experienced a fatal shooting since before 2015. Contrast that with nearly 200 fatal shootings in North Philadelphia-Strawberry Mansion, where more than 90% of the population is Black, or nearly 240 in the Kensington-Port Richmond area, with a Hispanic population of 50%.

From The Philadelphia Inquirer, August 12, 2021. Click to enlarge..

Given that white Americans are, in general, wealthier than black and Hispanic citizens, white Philadelphians have the greater ability to head for the Sunshine State. What that means as far as emigration is concerned, because white Philadelphians are simply safer, in general, than black or Hispanic residents, needed to be further explored.

We do know, however, that the white population of the city has dropped precipitously.

It’s easy to see why. Florida lawmakers have spent the last 22 years slashing government spending, zeroing out the income tax, lowering others, creating a vibrant school choice model with state education dollars, and fostering a business-friendly climate. . . . .

The key to righting the ship in Pennsylvania is simple and should be bipartisan. As the Commonwealth Foundation’s poll shows, a majority of voters across parties want what Florida has: low taxes, less government spending, school choice, and jobs and opportunity for themselves and their children.

The solution offered by Wolf and Kenney? Increase property taxes. Let crime run rampant. Stifle any opportunity to foster an education landscape that puts parents in the driver’s seat. Push endlessly for tax hikes against middle-to-upper-income earners.

It’s simple: Philadelphia is ruled by Democrats, has been for three generations, and Governor Wolf’s and Mayor Kenney’s plans fall right in line with standard Democratic Party tropes.

Going after people with money has become the one solution that unites Democrats. It’s a populist cause with devastating results. As Rand foretold, there will always be a Ron DeSantis (or John Galt) creating a place where all people can flourish. When wealthy people leave, those of us without the means or opportunity to follow are left behind. That means fewer tax dollars for government programs, fewer jobs, and less opportunity.

The wealthy should pay taxes just like everyone else. But good luck getting the money when they’re already gone.

One thing has become painfully clear: Democratic policies simply do not work. Conservatives have been telling the left that for decades, but the response of the left has always been to claim that the only problems are that they just didn’t go far enough; Democrats always double down.

I stated that I was surprised that the Inquirer gave Miss Stefano the OpEd space, but, on the front page of the newspaper’s website, at least as of 7:45 PM EDT on Monday, June 13th, immediately below Miss Stefano’s article was another entitled “Too much property tax relief will put city schools at risk“. The Inquirer never misses an opportunity to advocate for the policies which have failed in the past.

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“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” — Albert Einstein

We have previously noted how Mayor Rudy Giuliani cleaned up New York City in the 1990s, with policies continued by his successor, Michael Bloomberg, and how my younger daughter, whom I have joked is the whitest white girl in town, and I were able to walk, in complete safety, from the lower borders of Harlem back toward downtown. Messrs Giuliani and Bloomberg focused on ‘quality of life’ crimes and ‘broken windows’ policing, trying to intercept the petty criminals before they became major thugs.

Philadelphia isn’t like that. Under Mayor Jim Kenney and District Attorney Larry Krasner, the ‘lesser’ offenses have been ignored, which have done nothing but embolden the ‘entry-level’ criminals, who see themselves as getting away with doing whatever they want, until they become really bad guys, and start killing people. Now it seems as though a lot of people in the City of Brotherly Love would like to see the Giuliani program! Continue reading →

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Chesa Boudin gets kicked to the curb

It has been said that a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged. Well, to quote Yogi, I’m smarter than the average bear, I’m a conservative who has never been mugged, but was smart enough to figure out, all on my own, that being soft and lenient on crime does not turn criminals into liberal sweethearts, but just more emboldened criminals. Sadly, it took being mugged for the leftists in the land of fruits and nuts to figure out what ought to have been plain, common sense:

S.F. DA recalled, L.A.’s Caruso advances as Democrats tested on crime

Some of the highest-profile primaries were fueled by angst over liberal leaders’ approach to public safety

by Hannah Knowles | Tuesday, June 7, 2022 | 11:00 PM EDT | Updated: Wednesday, June 8, 2022 | 2:58 AM EDT

Crime, homelessness and Democratic divisions over the issues took center stage Tuesday as a liberal prosecutor in San Francisco was recalled and seven states held primaries that helped mold each party’s image heading into November’s fight for control of Congress, statehouses and major cities across the country.

The recall of San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin (D) — whom critics called too lenient — came as angst over liberal leaders’ approach to public safety also loomed large in a contest for Los Angeles mayor, where Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.) and billionaire businessman Rick Caruso are projected to advance to a runoff. Caruso, a former Republican, has pitched himself as a different kind of Democrat who will fix long-simmering crises in the nation’s second-largest city.

Continue reading →

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More on the South Street gunfight Businessmen want 'broken windows' policing; Philly Mayor and District Attorney don't want that at all!

Laughing out loud! Philadelphia District Attorney won’t even prosecute people for illegal firearms possession, yet business owners expect the city to enforce “anti-nuisance laws”?

Rudy Giuliani was unavailable for comment.

Business owners say weak enforcement is emboldening the violence on Philly’s South Street

Several South Street business owners cited a climate of “lawlessness” in the city. The lack of enforcement is creating a climate of impunity that climaxes in lethal force.

by Joseph N DiStephano | Tuesday, June 7, 2022

Ron Dangler served two tours in Iraq — where he was “a door-kicker,” a cavalry scout at the front of a dangerous patrol in Ramadi in 2005 and 2006.

So it wasn’t the first time the Philadelphia native who owns Dobbs, the rock club at 304 South St., had heard gunfire, when shooters blasted each other and a crowd of people in the street on Saturday night, leaving three dead and 11 wounded. Continue reading →

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The left love to blame Republicans for the actions of the Democratic base

Adopted Philadelphian Amanda Marcotte doesn’t normally write about the City of Brotherly Love, but with the gang gun battle on Sunday, even she had to pay attention. From Salon:

U.S. gun laws are causing mayhem and mass murder — and Republicans couldn’t be more thrilled

Crappy gun laws cause our crime problems. But Republicans blame liberal prosecutors and make racist arguments

by Amanda Marcotte | Monday, June 6, 2022 | 1:30 PM EDT

After reassuring multiple people by text that my partner and I had been tucked safely in bed at 11:30 on Saturday night, I finally cracked and posted a general reassurance on Facebook. No, we had not been near the shooting on South Street in Philadelphia, where we live, that resulted in 3 deaths and 11 major injuries. But people’s concerns weren’t misplaced. We had been at a party in that neighborhood just the night before. Saturday’s was the ninth mass shooting in the city this year alone, according to the Gun Violence Archive. There have been shootings at train stations and house parties. One group of victims was going to the prom. These things really are a matter of luck in a society that’s swimming in as much gun violence as ours.

It’s interesting that the author lives in Philadelphia, but cites The Washington Post. Perhaps she doesn’t subscribe to her hometown newspaper?

I get it: Miss Marcotte isn’t really interested in digging more deeply into a story, if the surface fits Teh Narrative she wishes to use. The “group of victims” going to prom”? There was one male targeted, because some other people wanted him dead, and the other three were simply in the way. This was gang violence, but that’s not something she wishes to discuss. Continue reading →

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It’s always the gun’s fault! For the left, the bad people using firearms can never be blamed!

As of 11:59 PM EDT on Thursday, June 2nd, the Current Crime Statistics page of the Philadelphia Police Department reported that there had been 211 homicides in the City of Brotherly Love. That page, which is not updated on the weekend, finally shows that as of 11:59 PM EDT on Sunday, June 5th, the number of murders had soared to 218.

The Philadelphia Inquirer, our nation’s third oldest continuously published daily newspaper, had told us about the killing of a pregnant woman in her early twenties in Port Richmond, and how doctors at Temple University Hospital had managed to save her unborn child. And the gang gunfight that left three people dead being described as a “mass shooting” was all over the newspaper’s website, but that’s ‘only’ four homicides reported, four out of the seven the police department has now totaled. A search of the newpaper’s website main page and crime page on Monday morning at 8:09 AM EDT found nothing on those other three homicides.

Perhaps previously wounded people expired since early Friday morning; we just don’t know from the Inky. But we do know that the same failed and tired leaders of the city are making the same failed and tired statements: Continue reading →

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Why won’t anybody tell the truth about South Street

There were fourteen people shot, three of whom died as of Sunday afternoon, in what is being called a “mass shooting” by just about everybody, and The Philadelphia Inquirer was kind enough to give us their definition:

The Inquirer defines a mass shooting as one that occurs in public and kills three or more people. Definitions of mass shooting vary, with no single consensus. The FBI has classified mass murder as four or more deaths in a single incident; Congress has used the definition of three or more.

The Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit that tracks mass shootings, defines them as any incident in which four or more people are injured or killed, a classification some national media outlets also use.

But “mass shooting” invokes images of the Uvalde or Parkland or Sandy Hook school massacres, especially with Uvalde and the Buffalo shootings fresh in people’s minds.

However this was not some kook with an AR-15 who set up and planned to kill a bunch of people. No, this was a gun battle between at least two groups “beefin'” with each other. To the right is a screen capture from the Inquirer taken at 4:20 PM EDT, one which happened to occur in a large crowd, and in which innocent bystanders were wounded and killed.

Commissioner Danielle Outlaw on Sunday called Saturday’s mass shooting on South Street an “atrocity,” and police said at least five guns were fired in the incident as dozens of people tried to flee or navigate chaos that spanned several blocks.

At least one of the slain was an innocent bystander: Kris Minners, 22, a second-grade boys’ resident adviser at Girard College, a well-known Philadelphia boarding school, died from his injuries at Jefferson Hospital.

Officials said the investigation into the incident remained in its early stages, and several questions remained unclear. Police officials said no one had been taken into custody, and investigators were still seeking to piece together video, ballistics, and other evidence.

Outlaw said officers assigned to the 200 block of South Street heard gunshots on the 400 block around 11:31 p.m. When the officers arrived, Outlaw said, they saw several people with gunshot wounds and began giving first aid.

One of the officers then noticed a man on the 200 block, near an intersection with American Street, firing into a crowd, Outlaw said. The officer fired several shots, some of which Outlaw said likely hit the suspected shooter, but the man ran away.

Chief Inspector Frank Vanore said all of that likely came after a fight on the 200 block of South Street. Police believe that brawl, which began as a fistfight, may have been the incident that initiated much of the gunfire. As the fight progressed, two men pulled guns and shot each other, police said. One of the men died.

In the aftermath, Vanore said, another three guns were fired along South Street across several blocks. The officer also shot at the man near American Street.

Well, it’s good that at least one of the dead was one of the instigators!

Video shows gun drawn before fistfight erupted between men on South Street

by Max Marin and Aubrey Whelan | Sunday, June 5, 2022

Cell phone footage circulating online, and corroborated by The Inquirer, shows a fistfight that led to gunfire on South Street on Saturday night.

In one video, two men appear to exchange words with a third man in front of Rita’s Water Ice between Second and Third Streets. The two men then slowly descend on the third — one of them drawing what appears to be a handgun as they advance. A fistfight ensues.

People standing nearby begin to panic when they observe the drawn handgun. “They about to shoot!” a woman said.

The men trade blows and wrestle with each other for less than 15 seconds, moving into the middle of South Street, when a volley of gunshots rings out, at which point the video cuts away. The footage conforms with another video of the events viewed by The Inquirer.

More than two dozen gunshots ring out in quick succession.

A trail of blood snaked along the sidewalk outside Rita’s after the shooting. On Sunday morning, the police chalk outlines for more than a dozen shell casings were still visible on the nearby sidewalks.

In a separate video posted online, which occurs sometime after the shooting ended, a group of women is seen huddled above a bleeding woman who lies in the southside crosswalk of Third and South — the same spot a nearby bar owner told The Inquirer he saw a woman collapse last night.

Blood had stained the white striping of the same crosswalk when a reporter arrived on scene around 1 a.m.

Of course, the Inquirer, which said it “corroborated”, was quickly made public, and Steve Keeley of Fox 29 News tweeted it:

Naturally, the Inquirer didn’t want to tell readers that it was two black men appear to exchange words with a third black man.

Of course a race-baiter styling herself PJ had this to say:

#WhiteSupremacist attacked downtown #Philadelphia last night.

Over 14 people shot, by a fully automatic #AR15 machine gun.

Yet this is normalized in #america thanks to the GOP and NRA. Time to abolish and confiscate! #GetOutTheVote

#Pennsylvania #Pittsburgh #BLM #Pride

I regret that I sometimes take too seriously an account that simply has to be a parody, because no one could really be that stupid.

But what is that stupid are all of the Democratic politicians crying out for gun control, when it’s obvious that no gun control measures would have stopped this. At least one of the guns recovered had an ‘extended magazine,’ which is illegal. Eventually we’ll find out that none of the weapons was legally possessed by any of the gang-bangers who started shooting up South Street. But that doesn’t matter to the gun grabbers who want to disarm all law-abiding people, thinking that will somehow disarm the criminals. George Soros’ stooge District Attorney, Larry Krasner, tweeted:

The terrible crimes last night on South Street tell our Pennsylvania legislators it’s time for real action. Boycott NRA lobbyists, boycott NRA donations, and bring real common sense gun regulation to Pennsylvania. Now.

We remember, of course, how the distinguished Mr Krasner, who could have has Hasan Elliot locked up on a parole violation, who could have had him behind bars, just let him go, and Mr Elliot then killed Philadelphia Police Corporal James O’Connor IV. Mr Krasner has Corporal O’Connor’s blood on his hands!

The left won’t want to let this ‘crisis’ go to waste, but it’s always the same thing: their response to criminals is to assail the rights of law-abiding people.