Licence to carry applications Philadelphia
Courtesy The Philadelphia Inquirer

Janice Tosto never thought she would become a gun owner, especially now at age 58.

But over the last year, she began feeling a growing sense of lawlessness and danger in the city and particularly in her Germantown neighborhood. Now, she’s applying for a permit to carry a firearm.

“I’m not thrilled that I have to do this,” she said. “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 be able to defend myself.”

Tosto’s far from alone.

Since the pandemic began, gun sales and permit issuances have risen sharply in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, matching nationwide trends. In 2021, the city issued 52,230 new license-to-carry-permits, an increase of more than 600% from the year prior. In both 2020 and 2021, there were more than a million gun sales or transfers across Pennsylvania.

While the boom of sales and permits have slowed since their pandemic peaks, those who work in the industry attribute the increased interest in firearm ownership to fear amid growing gun violence, as with Tosto. In 2022, for example, 514 people were killed in homicides in Philadelphia, the vast majority by gun.

“We get [customers] from all over,” said Tom Dixon, a firearm trainer and the owner of Surplus Armé, a gun store and manufacturer in Chester. “A lot of women. Definitely a lot of women. All demographics.”

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49 COMMENTS

  2. A rational gun-control proponent may see this stat and ask themselves how can the reduce the anxiety residents feel over their safety so they don’t all run out and buy guns. An answer would necessarily include locking away offenders, clearing out vagrants and effective policing.

    Too bad all we have are irrational gun-control proponents who will sprint full speed toward “bAnTh3gUnZzZ!1!1!!” and malign the gun owners as nazis, -ists and -phobes. Maybe even Russian agents. Do they still call everyone they don’t like Russian agents? Oh, and science deniers. Measures that are sure to make Philly safer and more friendly.

    • All the same people who still think Masks prevent covid, and they still take booster shots of a failed vaccine. If there is a single constant in the world, it’s that stupid people stay stupid.

  3. I read that Philadelphia Enquirer article earlier this morning. Besides Tosto the Enquirer spoke with several other citizens who voiced the same sentiments. I don’t know what these left wing mayors thought would happen when they allowed criminals to rule the streets. Most humans will defend themselves if they can. The left has given them no choice.

    • “I don’t know what these left wing mayors thought would happen when they allowed criminals to rule the streets.”

      They can’t see beyond their own noses.

      In their zeal to crash the system and bring about their new ‘utopia’, they ignore human nature, as you have adroitly pointed out…

    • Gadsden Flag,

      “I don’t know what these left wing mayors thought would happen when they allowed criminals to rule the streets.”

      They were counting on their populace to respond the same way that the masses have responded all over the world throughout Human History: fold like a house of cards and beg their “Betters” for table scraps.

      By and large the masses have done exactly that since only 7% (or thereabouts) of the responsible adult population arm themselves for righteous self-defense.

      Maybe not so obvious–or it is obvious and Mayors just don’t care: that small percentage (7%) of responsible adults maintain a spirit of liberty: they snub the Ruling Class and prepare as best they can to care for themselves.

  5. Dems have sent the last decade trashing once beautiful cities. Hopefully it will make people turn against them and vote against them. With all their cheating, we’ll need overwhelming support to win.

    • Unfortunately those people/votes you speak of, have been bought and paid for by the Democrats. With 100s of millions of $$$ of so called ‘Free Stuff’.

  6. And yet these very fine upstanding folk will continue voting for representatives who tirelessly work to make exercising their 2A rights as difficult as possible. Now that’s how I define stupid.

    • John Wayne said it best. “Life’s hard. It’s even harder if you’re stupid.”
      He couldn’t have said it better. And practically every liberal in the US falls in that category, stupid.

  7. I always wonder how many of these folks are actually purchasing the firearm for a restricted friend, husband or social associate.

    • This is about Licenses to carry, not about firearm purchases. The math is pretty simple.

      For example the area around Kensington and Allegheny. colloquially known as “K&A” was always a “bad” neighborhood. 20 years ago that meant my father in law went there to buy weed. There was a small chance of getting robbed, and yet he never was robbed. Look it up on YouTube today. It’s the zombie apocalypse. And it is scaring the shit out of the normies.

    • Obama and Biden sold more guns in their years as president than the last 3 republican presidents combined. There are a very few good things that come from having an idiot for president.

  9. Good for Tosto for realizing she is responsible for her own safety, and that in the end, the police do not care about anyone. On the other hand, I wonder if she will still be “stuck on stupid”, and still vote for the same people who got Philly into this situation in the first place, and then wonder why? Well, baby steps, I suppose.

    • 514 homicides huh?!? That’s a Chiraq level of crime(it’s spreading EVERYWHERE). I gave my beautiful brown wife a gat & now she carries one. And she’s a registered Republican. Not me. No primaries for me. Good for this gal🙄

      • Philly was out doing Chicago per capita in murders for all of 2018-2021 (new data still pending) and was competitive for around a decade prior to that stretch.

  11. She will soon learn that making that purchase turned her into an enemy of the state. I wonder how long it will take before she hands it over at a local gun buyback. Either way, i doubt very seriously she will stop voting for the Democrats that created the problem that now threatens her.

    Outside of that, I congratulate her for taking responsibility for herself.

    • The sad reality is, people like this move away from the area that is crime ridden and move to areas that are frequently deemed, “best places in America to live.” However, they move to this new great place and bring their same shity voting habits. They vote for the very same things that they just ran from. There are only so many places left that are not infested with idiots, and those places are disappearing quickly. Until these people learn to change their ways, they only serve to infect the rest of us with symptoms of the disease that is liberalism.

  12. It is one thing to have a gun permit. It is quite another to know how to use it and have the will to.

    • Guns are not complicated or difficult to use. Most evil doers flee at the sight of one. Bernie Geotz did just fine with no training or experience. So did the gentleman in the mall in the last couple of years. People don’t need to be navy seals or IDPA champions to put some lead in the meaty parts of a misguided yout.

      • Pirate. Not saying that they are, but as you well know hitting a target without endangering others is while not “difficult” requires practice and common sense.

        Bernie Goetz was shooting as very close range. In a situation where you are the good guy with the gun, you can’t dictate the distance which you will have to shoot at or whether or not the target stands still, or if there is someone behind the target which could get hit by a miss.

        All these considerations MUST be taken into account in a “shoot, don’t shoot” situation. Any police officer or trained gun owner will tell you that.

      • Pirate. Not saying that they are, but as you well know hitting a target without endangering others is while not “difficult” requires practice and common sense.

        Bernie Goetz was shooting as very close range. In a situation where you are the good guy with the gun, you can’t dictate the distance which you will have to shoot at or whether or not the target stands still, or if there is someone behind the target which could get hit by a miss.

        All these considerations MUST be taken into account in a “shoot, don’t shoot” situation. Any police officer or trained gun owner will tell you that. And we both know MOST gun owners do not practice near enouigh to be reasonable accurate.

        • Walter, distance means little. There are videos out there of people standing less than 3 feet apart with nothing but a small tree between them and one guy with a revolver fires 6 times at the other guy and never hits him.
          I can agree that the average person who goes out and buys a gun is probably not qualified to shoot it in public. They don’t understand the complexities of knowing your target and what is behind it. If all those who get involved with firearms would just read and learn Colonel Jeff Cooper’s 4 rules, they’d be far less likely to make a massive mistake.

  14. They are obviously not doing enough, or fast enough. When four or five criminals are dumped into a hole in the ground on a daily basis, the criminals will begin to wise up. Not all of them, but enough that violent crime will decrease. At some point, you reach an equilibrium, with maybe two criminals getting killed each month. About then, things start to be tolerable for honest citizens.

    Instead of “see something, say something”, we need to “see something, DO something!”

    • Democratic Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy said; “We don’t have more mental illness in this country, we don’t spend less money on law enforcement, we don’t have angrier people, we have more guns, and we are much more permissive in this country about allowing felons, dangerous people, to get their hands on guns,” he said.

      First, obviously that guy is not connected to reality. We have a massive increase in mental illness in the country, and a great deal of it came from the gov’t response to Covid. This is medically provable information that shows this senator is either an idiot or willing to stand up there in congress and lie.

      He also said, “we don’t spend less money on law enforcement.”
      REALLY?!? He seems to have forgotten their saying, “defund the police.” If he’s doesn’t see the massive decrease in police budgets (NYC alone cut over 1 BILLION dollars from the police budget) then he’s blind and has no business in congress.

      Then he said “We don’t have angrier people.”
      Top quote an idiot, “come on man!” This link: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/06/26/735757156/poll-americans-say-were-angrier-than-a-generation-ago
      is pre Covid in 2019 and talks about this generation being angier than the previous. It got worse after Covid. Another blatant lie.

      As to his “opinion” that we are permissive about allowing felons to own guns is an outright lie. Not only is he wrong, it is the polar opposite. We have more laws than you can shake a stick at to keep guns away from those who aren’t supposed to have them. More laws won’t stop criminals from taking criminal actions to precure and use weapons. As the old adage says, “if you ban guns, only criminals will have them.”

      So this idiot basically lied about everything he said and the media prints this garbage as fact. Journalism is dead. And liberalism is killing our country.

  18. YOU ARE MUCH “LESS SAFE “FROM HOMICIDE OR SUICIDE IF A GUN IS IN THE HOME.

    You are 35 times more likely to die of suicide if a gun is in the home and you have almost a zero chance of survival if you do shoot yourself as compared to other forms of suicide. All this has been verified numerous times by the number of people saved by first responders that used another means other than a gun to try and kill themselves with.

    https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2020/06/handgun-ownership-associated-with-much-higher-suicide-risk.html

    Results:
    Of 595 448 cohort members who commenced residing with handgun owners, two thirds were women. A total of 737 012 cohort members died; 2293 died by homicide. Overall rates of homicide were more than twice as high among cohabitants of handgun owners than among cohabitants of nonowners (adjusted hazard ratio, 2.33 [95% CI, 1.78 to 3.05]). These elevated rates were driven largely by higher rates of homicide by firearm (adjusted hazard ratio, 2.83 [CI, 2.05 to 3.91]). Among homicides occurring at home, cohabitants of owners had sevenfold higher rates of being fatally shot by a spouse or intimate partner (adjusted hazard ratio, 7.16 [CI, 4.04 to 12.69]); 84% of these victims were female.

    Conclusion:
    Living with a handgun owner is associated with substantially elevated risk for dying by homicide. Women are disproportionately affected.

    https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/full/10.7326/M21-3762

    • Here’s hoping you have a firearm in your home and your predictions hold true. Merry Christmas Dammit.

    • Well I guess my family is screwed given the size of my firearm collection. Oh wait, I already raised two kids and they live on their own and neither of them was harmed by any of my firearms. How can that be! Because down south we raise our kids around firearms. They learn to respect them because we teach. This aint’ NY or Chicago where kids are handed a gun and a bag of weed and sent to the corner to sell it.

      And for Christmas I bought myself a S&W 5.7 handgun that holds 22 rounds. I can hear the libtard screams from here.

  19. Stand your ground laws are a bad idea the statistics prove.

    This cohort study found that the staggered adoption of SYG laws in US states was associated with increases in homicide and firearm homicide rates across the US. These increases reach 10% and higher in several Southern states, while no states had significant reductions in violent deaths, as advocates often argue when justifying these laws. The accumulation of evidence established in this and other studies point to harmful outcomes associated with SYG laws. Despite this, SYG laws have now been enacted in most states, and the uptake of new SYG bills continues to be popular, unnecessarily risking lives.

    https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2789154

    • Those so called homicides you speak of are all the dead criminals, being shoot by innocent homeowners and citizens out in the wild.

    • You often compare apples to oranges in topics and data sets but on this particular topic you tend to go full fruit basket. With that said if freedom bothers you so much Jerry you could always move out of Ohio.

    • dacian, the DUNDERHEAD, Whose statistics? Your Leftist academia’s studies, cherry picked t refkect what you Lefties want them to say? Oh please. Come up with something believable and we just might care.

    • SYG ground laws put the power back in the hands of the people. You break into my house in the middle of the night, you’re leaving in a body bag. You can take that statistic to the bank.

  21. There are tons of actions that people are reluctant to do, but they do them because they’re necessary. I’d rather not fight for gun rights, but there are lots of SOBs who are trying to restrict me, so I have to donate to organizations, keep up on proposed laws and regulations (have you commented on the BATFE rules to redefine dealers yet?), etc. If people would quit trying to infringe, I could do something more useful with my time and money.

    • Unfortunately, those tards will never stop. Which means we have to waste time, money and effort to repel their attempted advance. I too donate to several organizations that fight for our rights. I often tell these libtards, as soon as you give up all your first amendment rights, we can sit down and discuss the 2nd. No one ever takes me up on that. Odd isn’t it?!?

      • I think that the energy to defend the Second Amendment is never wasted, B. The minute we slack off, these Marxist bastards will take whatever they think we are giving up to them. Is it tiring? Yes. Exhausting? Yes. Do I wish they would just go the hell away and move to come Communist/leftist country where they have not only NO Second Amendment right, but none of the others! Yes!!!! But, they will not, because these wanna-be-Marxists fools know deep down how good they have it here. They know damned good and well they would never get away with this crap anywhere else. They are only the “chosen ones”, because they are useful (and useless eaters) idiots-nothing more. I think the Second Amendment is well-worth fighting for. So, like the picture of the frog who is in the mouth of the pelican…and the frog’s hands resolutely strangling the pelican’s neck…never give up!!!! But yes, odd how they use the 1st to attack our 2nd. Not understanding the irony that it is the 2nd gives them that freedom in the first place…

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