Lookit Philly getting all puffy chested:

Philadelphia - District Attorney Lynne Abraham, flanked by Attorney General Tom Corbett and State Sen. Vincent Fumo (D-Philadelphia), announced the arrests of 112 straw purchasers of illegal weapons yesterday.

Well, I’m sure if Pennsylvania would’ve passed some laws making them wait a month to buy hand guns, this wouldn’t be possible!

Ms. Abraham touted the work of the Gun Violence Task Force, a relatively new program which employs retired police officers to investigate crimes involving straw purchases.

Great! Give them something to do, no problem with that. This, however, is a little suspicious to me:

Most notably, the taxpayer-subsidized program allowed investigators to arrest two individuals linked to the Oct. 4 shooting of two armored car guards in North Philadelphia.

Jason Lighty, 26, of the 6200 block of Catherine Street, and Eric Benson, 25, of the 1500 block of Ellsworth Street, employed with National Car Rental, at one time allegedly owned the gun that police confiscated in the robbery attempt.

See, there’s not enough information there. “allegedly owned the gun” doesn’t make any sense. They did, or they didn’t. If they did, how did it get to someone who was shooting at armored car guards. If they didn’t own it … well … what gives?

My guess, they owned it, needed some cash, and sold it to someone. That someone went all pulp-fiction on a couple of armored car guards. Then, he got caught. No one-gun-a-month law would’ve helped that. No mythical “gun-show-loophole” to speak of. No “locked and in a safe” law prevented it. Two people allegedly sold a piece to some gang banger. No restriction on your average law-abiding gun-nut would’ve prevented that. But I digress …

The gun used by Mustafa Ali, 36, the suspect charged with the killing of William Widmaier, 65, and Joseph Alullo, 55, as they serviced an ATM outside a Wachovia Bank at Cottman Avenue and Roosevelt Boulevard. One survivor, Joseph Walczak, the driver of the armored vehicle testified at Mr. Ali’s preliminary hearing last week.

“We’re going to find out how these straw purchases happened and track them all down,” Ms. Abraham said during the press conference.

“GRRRRR,” added Ms. Abraham, showing her teeth to the small, crowded room of reporters.

The task force, which uses $5 million annually in state tax funds, allowed the Attorney General’s office, which oversees the program, to hire 15 new firearms examiners.

I guess your average, every day police officer is too busy to be bothered with this stuff. Looking for ways to spend the public’s money, are we?

“We want to send this message to straw purchasers that you will do time in jail,” Mr. Corbett said.

… as he thrust his arms into the air and balanced on one foot, adding, “I’m going for that snake-slash-ninja approach!”

“Anyone who is a straw purchaser deserves to see the inside of a prison.”

Just seems like they’re trying way to hard for some kind of threatening sound byte. I’d prefer this one:

“We’re going to encourage law-abiding citizens to carry concealed, so they can pop a cap in your sorry ass if you decide to go running around the streets like a dumb shit holding that thing sideways and missing anything beyond 6 feet in front of you.”