Inquirer Editorial: What's more important than where to sit in Rittenhouse Square? Surviving gun violence

There has been a lot of inane handwringing about where people can sit in tony Rittenhouse Square. But in many other parts of the city, folks can't even sit on their own stoop for fear of getting shot.

Just in the first couple of weeks of this year, more than 50 people were shot in Philadelphia. The total number of people shot last year (1,280) increased 4 percent from 2015, and jumped 22 percent compared with 2014.

On average, a person gets shot once every six hours in Philadelphia.

Most of the shootings happen in poorer sections of the city - out of sight and mind for many with power and influence. But that shouldn't make the violence more tolerable. Consider the seven days of mayhem starting Jan. 9:

Monday: Barry Jones, 32, was shot in the head and killed around 10 p.m. while trying to stop a robbery inside a friend's apartment in West Philadelphia.

Tuesday: Jason Rivers, 42, a former U.S. Marine who served in Iraq, was shot outside his home in West Philadelphia at 10:30 p.m., after two men tried to rob him while he was cleaning snow off of his car. He was treated at Penn-Presbyterian Medical Center and released.

Wednesday: A 26-year-old man was shot four times in West Oak Lane just after 5:30 p.m. He was taken to Einstein Medical Center and pronounced dead.

Thursday: Over the course of just two-and-a-half hours, there were five separate shooting incidents that left two dead and six others injured.

It all started at 6:55 p.m. with a double shooting in Germantown left two men injured.

At 8:10 p.m., David McFarlin, 19, was shot 10 times in Cederbrook. Twenty minutes later, Eric Robinson, 35, was shot in the head outside of a bar in Frankford. Both died at the scene.

At 8:50 p.m., two other men were shot in West Philadelphia. Thirty minutes later two more men were shot in West Philadelphia.

Friday: A 33-year-old man was shot in the stomach around 2 a.m. while sitting in his car in South Philadelphia. At 8:15 p.m., a 28-year-old man was shot in the head and killed as he was about to climb into his tow truck in the Tacony section of the city. Another man sitting in the driver's seat of the truck was also shot several times and treated at Aria Health-Torresdale.

Saturday: Three people were shot around 2:30 a.m. during a dispute outside the Capital Ridge Bar in North Philadelphia. The victims included a 28-year-old woman and two men, ages 24 and 32.

Sunday: Four separate shootings resulted in two deaths, all in West Philadelphia. Around 2 a.m., a 36-year-old taxi driver was shot 13 times on the 800 block of Brooklyn Street. He was taken to Penn-Presbyterian Hospital and listed in critical condition.

A 21-year-old man was shot in the neck at 12:40 p.m. Twenty minutes later, a 16-year-old boy who was shot in the head and killed inside his father's convenience store. An hour later, a 27-year-old man was killed after he shot in the face and chest six or seven times on the 5700 block of Spruce Street.

The tally over the seven-day stretch: 21 people shot; seven dead.

That should cause as much alarm as any mass shooting. Instead, it was just another week in Philadelphia.