Earlier this week, Mike McGinn announced a public safety plan. It seemed a little late, given that reporters had been asking his thoughts on the subject for a long time, and that while he was waiting to announce it, he lost out on public safety endorsements. But the plan, with its heavy emphasis on deterring gun crimes, turned out to be perfectly timed for this week’s news, as today the P-I reports that gun crimes in the city in the first half of ’09 are up 58% over the same period last year. In some ways, it’s a perplexing trend, as murders are down, and other crimes haven’t risen nearly as much. And in all ways, it’s a disturbing one, which we’ll probably be hearing more about as November approaches.