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The Philadelphia City Council is on the verge of forcing owners of hundreds of stores to take down their protective glass partitions. These glass dividers help to protect owners, managers, and workers from robberies and assaults. “Who would have ever thought the progressive position on gun violence would be to encourage more of it”, says Walter Olson of the Cato Institute.
Yet that’s the paradox in Philadelphia, where on Thursday the city council will consider a bill to force owners of hundreds of small corner stores to take down glass partitions that protect their managers and clerks from being robbed and assaulted.
It’s all being rationalized in the name of social justice. Watch for the idea to show up in New York, too.
Yet the bill won committee approval at the Dec. 4 hearing, though amended so as to phase in the ban over three years. The editors of the Philadelphia Inquirer can’t make it any plainer in their headline: “Philly’s proposed bulletproof glass ban could get someone shot.”
Walter Olson is senior fellow at the Cato Institute.
