Ryan Quinlan ’14
Philadelphia continues to hold the highest homicide rate of the ten most populous cities, with a homicide victim count of 324 in 2011.
According to Philly.com, Philadelphia had 20.7 homicides for each 100,000 residents, while Chicago had 15.7 and New York City only had 6.1. Although Philadelphia’s homicide rate peaked in 2006, with 406 homicides, 2011 marked a slight increase from 2009 and 2010, which had 302 and 306 deaths respectively.
In a recent interview with the Daily Pennsylvanian, Eric Schineder, a history professor, said, “I don’t think the recent upturn in homicides is significant … The larger issue is that Philadelphia has not seen a very significant decline in murders the way NYC, Chicago and Los Angeles have.”
During Michael Nutter’s run for Philadelphia mayor in 2007, he promised a “new day and a new way” for Philadelphia and vowed to lower the city’s homicide rate by 30-50 percent. Since Nutter’s election in 2007, Philadelphia’s homicide rate has dropped 17 percent.
Of the 324 homicides in 2011, 84 percent of the victims were black citizens and nearly 82 percent of the murders involved a firearm. “You want to know that when you can walk down your street, that nothing is going to happen … The still-present fear of safety in Philadelphia is due to a proliferation of illegal guns,” said Mayor Nutter.
In 2011, The National Instant Criminal Background Check System performed 16.4 million background checks for hopeful gun owners, approximately 2 million more than in 2010.
Although Pennsylvania has relatively lax gun purchase requirements, in 2011, 719,000 background checks were done, marking an increase of about 15 percent from previous years. However, Gary Cundiff, a low-volumes fireairms dealer and retired Cherry Hill police officer, said “A rise in gun sales done with background checks does not lead to more shootings …The normal law-abiding citizen who pass the background checks is not going to commit a crime with a gun. The criminal doesn’t care about the law.”

PDF Download