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Charles Jaco has written opinion and commentary pieces for dozens of magazines and newspapers. Each week, read and comment on a fresh on-line version. The discussion page enables you to share your view points world wide. If you would like to make a comment go to the " Join the discussion" link below. If you would like to view past editorials visit the Editorial Archive. Editorial: 9/17/99
I like guns. Of all the weapons I've ever fired for sport, or effect, three tie for the most fun. One was a greasy little piece of garbage called a TEK-9. Made in Miami for druggies, it allows you to spray bullets with about as much speed and accuracy as water from a hose. It has one object--to kill as many people in an enclosed space in as short a period of time as possible. Another is the M-24 sniper rifle. It takes a .308 Winchester round and with a click of the bolt, a deep breath, and a gentle squeeze of the trigger, can bring down a moving target 875 yards away. That's over eight football fields. It has one object--to kill individuals at as great a distance with as much stealth as possible. Then, there's the Stoner .50 caliber rifle, owned by everyone from the U.S. Army to the Branch Davidians. I like it just because of the absurdity of firing a .50 caliber round from a rifle, and the rush from watching it poke a hole the size of a softball in a target a half-mile off. Having said that, and having owned guns since I was six, let me say it plainly--the time has come for extremely tough enforcement of the gun laws on the books, and for some extremely tough new laws. Larry Gene Ashbrook, whom all his neighbors called a raving sociopathic lunatic, had no trouble buying a Ruger nine millimeter handgun and a .380 AMT handgun, legally, in February 1992 at a flea market called Trader's Village just outside of Fort Worth. He walked into the Wedgewood Baptist Chruch in Fort Worth the other night and shot a janitor who asked him to put out his cigarette. Then the fun really started. Seven people murdered, including three teen-agers before Ashbrook took his God-given Second Amendment right and blew his own brains out. Two days previous, a pair of people are shot dead in a California hospital. Before that, the Atlanta day trader slaughter. And before that, a list of school murders whose names pile up that a list of Civil War battlefields---Littleton; Jonesboro; Pearl; West Paducuh. The my-taxes-are-too-high whiners will love the first part of this. Since gun laws are Federal, either quadruple the size of every U.S. Attorney's office in America and start prosecuting each and every gun violation, or turn them over to the locals and let them hire several thousand new judges and attorneys. Either way, taxpayers who want current laws enforced had better be willing to pay for the extra judges and prosecutors and cops and public defenders to do the job. You want the moron selling guns out of the trunk of his Lexus to go to jail? You want the gangbanger using a nine millimeter behind bars? Prove it. Pay for it. Then, pass a law outlawing all gun sales of any kind at any time and any place unless by a Federally licensed firearms dealer. Set up a system where every purchase of any kind goes through a national computer of all law enforcement agencies. Throw the book at any gun dealer whose weapons end up being used in a series of crimes. Twenty to life on conspiracy to committ murder charges could keep a lot of dealers from selling to the wrong folks. Require a license and an I.D. to purchase ammunition. Any kind of ammo, from .22 shells to nine-millimeter rounds to shotgun shells. No license, no background check, no ammo. Period. Anyone violating it on either side of the counter? Mandatory ten to twenty. Anyone selling ammo on their own, without a license? Double it. I have had quite enough. To those who say get rid of all guns, I reply--wrong. If guns alone were the problem, you'd expect to see bloodbaths like this in Israel and Switzerland, two of the most heavily armed nations on earth. You don't. And to those who say they have an unquestioned right to buy or sell any kind of armament and any new laws will lead to confiscation of all guns, I say--go easy on the caffeine and stop smoking that stash you have hidden from your younger days. I remember when the N.R.A. was a good organization that tought gun safety and principles of outdoorsmanship. That changed in the early 70's, when the radicals took it over. Formner President Bush quit the N.R.A. for a reason. They are not part of the solution. So if we're all willing to pay the price, we can get guns out of the hands of people who shouldn't have them. It'll take time. But it means your wife can go to work and your husband can run errands and your kids can go to school and all of you can go to church without running into Larry gene Ashbrook and his caliber-enhanced psychosis. |
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