Insightful article on crime problem in Pennsylvania

Earlier this month, the Philadelphia Daily News called its hometown the “City of Blood,” and by all accounts that is a fair assessment for a place with 268 murders and more than 1,330 people shot this year.

So all eyes will be on Harrisburg later this month, when the state House meets in a rare, informal daylong voting session on how to curb violent crime in the City of Brotherly Love and across Pennsylvania.

But where some Philadelphia-area lawmakers see the need for tough new gun-control measures, local legislators and top law-enforcement officials see an opportunity to get to the root of the problem: drugs.

“Gun violence is coming from the drug trade,” said state Rep. Katie True, a Republican from East Hempfield Township. “People who deal in drugs, who make millions of dollars, really don’t care what kind of laws we pass on guns.” . . .

It is pretty hard to stop drug dealers from getting a hold of guns.