As part of our spotlight on hot election contests in the April 22 primary, the Committee of 70 has asked the Democratic candidates for the 1st District Senate seat to meet with us for short question-and-answer sessions about the issues and the campaign. We'll present these in the days leading up to the vote. Anne Dicker spoke with us over coffee at Java in Queen Village. Below is a snippet of the discussion. For a full version
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70: Can Philadelphia realistically get control of guns?
Dicker: I think Philadelphia deserves to have its own tighter gun laws, and I will work for that. But if you want to stem the tide of illegal handguns, it's got to be statewide. Because most of our illegal guns are actually coming from Montgomery County and Delaware county and Bucks County. Do I think that convince the rest of the state? Of course. Because 70 percent of Pennsylvanians want tighter gun control laws. They want one-gun-per-month. They want "lost or stolen" [gun reporting requirements].
I'm from the Midwest, from a town where my teachers took off weeks to go hunting. I understand the Midwestern value system that we're operating under. For years, we've had a battle between the rest of the state and Philadelphia, and I want to call a truce. I want to have an open and honest and respectful relationship with my colleagues. I think that by building that trust, we're going to be able to get through the insidious lobbying efforts of the NRA.
