THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, April 4, 1996 TAG: 9604040008
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 65 lines
On Monday, 3-year-old Taylor Ricks of Norfolk was fatally wounded by a stray bullet that struck her in the head as she looked through a bedroom window, curious about the fireworks-like noise outside.
In the United States, such horror is all too common. Americans die from stray and aimed bullets at rates far higher than in other lands not torn by (un)civil wars.
Champions of unfettered commerce in firearms may agree that such deaths are unfortunate but, well, that's the price Americans must pay for the right to bear arms - any kinds of arms gunmakers dream up. The gun lobby's answer to misuse of firearms is to tell us to get tough on criminals - lock up those who kill people with guns or anything else.
We, too, advocate separating violent people from society, and with more than a million lawbreakers behind bars in the United States (one in every 262 citizens), it's clear that most Americans do. But most of us also favor sensible restrictions on firearms such as the federal ban on pouring into the civilian market semiautomatic versions of military assault rifles (featuring large-capacity ammunition magazines).
The gun lobby is against the ban, so the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives, jumping to the lobby's tune, recently voted to repeal it. Whose welfare were the honorables trying to advance - the mass of Americans' or the gun peddlers'?
The gun lobby chants, ``An armed society is a polite society.'' But that's rot. We are armed to the teeth. If our armed society were also a polite society (and who says it is?), the annual body count from bullet wounds - homicides, legal intervention with firearms, suicides - wouldn't be close to 40,000 a year.
But gun manufacturers, gun and gun-parts importers and gun dealers, skillfully manipulating the paranoia of a minority, fiercely resist any regulation of firearms manufacturing, sales and handling.
Until the majority that favors rational regulation becomes as vocal as the minority that battles any restraints, there isn't a chance that the bloodletting that so many Americans shrug off as normal will slow significantly.
Little Taylor Ricks' neighbors in the Berkley section of Norfolk were angered and frightened by the fatal shooting; others far beyond the neighborhood were sickened and saddened. People in Berkley quickly identified three young men alleged to have fired at least 15 rounds at a fourth man - one of those rounds struck Taylor Ricks - and the suspects subsequently turned themselves in to the police.
Berkley residents also asked one another what else they could do to combat violence.
They could jointly proclaim zero tolerance for drug use and drug trafficking and try to persuade residents to triggerlock firearms in their households. They could develop and implement a comprehensive crime-prevention program. They could join with Virginians Against Handgun Violence and Handgun Control Inc. to tame the promiscuous commerce in firearms.
How many more innocents like Taylor Ricks must die before the majority unites against the zealous minority of firearms promoters to impose reasonable regulation of guns to complement crime-prevention and lock-'em-up strategies? Far too many, we fear. by CNB