Since the pandemic’s onset in 2020, the increase in rates of weapons purchases and permits sought has been in triple digits. Just in 2021, Philadelphia authorities issued 52,230 new license-to-carry-permits.
This marked a staggering surge of over 600% from just the year before.
And from 2020 through 2021, permit applications soared 539% in the city.
Across Pennsylvania, 2020 and 2021 combined saw more than one million gun sales or transfers.
There is a direct correlation between the citizenry arming themselves and the jump in violent crime plaguing most major cities. Last year there were 514 people murdered in Philadelphia, and despite what political leaders preach, law-abiding residents feel the danger.
Gun stores are at the forefront of the surge. Time Dixon is the owner of Surplus Arme as well as a weapons trainer. “We get [customers] from all over. A lot of women. Definitely a lot of women. All demographics.”
One of those female customers was Janice Tosto. The 58-year-old told the Philadelphia Inquirer that she never pictured herself as a gun owner, especially at her age. But she saw dramatic changes in her Germantown neighborhood as the pervasiveness of criminal activity grew.
So, she is applying for a carry permit.
Tosto told the outlet, “I’m not thrilled that I have to do this. I’m kind of scared about doing this, but at the same time because of the way that things are going [with] all this lawlessness in the city…as a Black woman, I just feel that it’s really important for me to have all the tools necessary to defend myself.”
And there is the crux of the situation.
People need to feel safe. There is little worse than the sense that you are a helpless victim of whatever random stranger would cause you harm. The right to self-defense is as fundamental as speech and the freedom to worship, and it must be protected.
Philadelphia residents who live in the real world know this all too well.
