A few weeks ago in this column, I wrote about the effectiveness (or more specifically, the lack of effectiveness) of blue ribbon panels. In that piece, I made one of my usual snide, cynical remarks about waiting for a blue ribbon panel report on dog poop on the sidewalks — the implication being that even the most mundane and trivial of subjects could eventually get the blue ribbon panel treatment.

Given the events of this week, it seems I was a bit off in my assessment of the dog poop situation. Cleaning up after your pooch is apparently quite an important issue — important enough to kill your neighbor for it.

First, though, the details. Tyrirk Harris, a 27-year-old former school police officer, was taking his German shepherd and chihuahua for a walk around his Tacony neighborhood, as he did every day. According to neighbors, Harris was in the habit of allowing his pooches to conduct their business on his neighbor’s lawns, but wasn’t in the habit of cleaning up after them.

On Tuesday afternoon, he was confronted by neighbor Franklin Manuel Santana, a 47-year old family man who just welcomed home a baby daughter. It seems Santana was sick and tired of removing Harris’ dog’s deposits from his lawn, and got in the man’s face about it.

Harris, according to police and witnesses, pulled out a 9mm pistol and fired at least six shots, making Santana the city’s 48th murder victim in the 45 days of 2012.

It’s a story so bizarre, it’s hard to wrap your mind around the facts. It’s as though there’s some sort of “Stupidest reason to kill someone” contest going on that only gun-toting half-wits know about.

Few reasonable people would fault someone for using deadly force to protect themselves or their family from imminent harm. There are a few more who would approve of pulling the trigger in defense of their property — like a car, for instance. But nobody — nobody — is about to sanction the idea of killing another human being just to defend your right to be a selfish, self-centered jerk.

Being a rotten neighbor (which by the way, if you’re letting your dog squat on your neighbor’s lawn and leaving it there, you may include yourself in that category) wasn’t bad enough. Harris had to double down on the ignorance because he wasn’t about to let anyone tell him what to do. In other words, he didn’t mind being a jerk; he just resented anyone reminding him of it.

So, in order to somehow save face, he did what any well-armed coward would do in that situation — he shot the man to death. Funny how shooting someone in order to save face always has the opposite effect. For instance, “He disrespected me!” has become the universal catchall excuse for unwarranted deadly violence. Do you suppose Harris’ Tacony neighbors respect him more now, or less?

It all comes down to the ready availability of guns, and the willingness of the weak-minded to use them as a first resort. There have been neighborhood disputes for as long as there have been neighborhoods, but until recent years those disputes were solved through angry arguments, or at worst, a punch in the nose. The idea of the “fair one,” when fists flew instead of bullets, is a quaint, long-forgotten notion. You know why? Because the new generation of cowards never learned to settle up with fists. In a fair fight, you have a 50-50 chance of taking a butt kicking, and no coward would be satisfied with those odds.

Any and all arguments, no matter how trivial, must now be settled by gunfire. It’s shameful, and it’s ridiculous — and it seems the city is powerless to stop it from happening on a daily basis.

Legislators from around the state, many of whom have been bought and sold by the National Rifle Association, or at least, have bought into the NRA rationale that municipalities like Philadelphia have no right to stem the flow of guns within city limits, have thwarted all efforts at common sense legislation aimed at keeping guns out of the hands of criminals, cowards and idiots.

We need that legislation. We city dwellers are overrun with criminals, cowards, and idiots, and if we can’t stop them, at least we should be able to disarm them without infringing on the rights of hunters and legitimate gun owners.

Either that, or we keep piling up nominations for the “stupidest reason to kill someone” award. So far this year, 48 and counting.

Daryl Gale is the Philadelphia Tribune's city editor.