How many times and how many ways does this have to be said before it sinks in?
Criminals don't care about laws. That's what makes them criminals. If they ignore the thousands of state and federal gun laws already on the books, what makes anyone think they'll pay attention to a handful more?
Yes, the shooting death of Kayla Rolland was an unspeakable tragedy. And the 6-year-old boy who took a loaded handgun to his Michigan school and used it on his classmate is as much a victim as little Kayla.
The boy was living with an uncle and various strangers in a drug- and gun-infested flophouse because his dad was in jail and his mom had been evicted from their home. A 19-year-old living in the house (who broke a law that limits possession of handguns to people 21 and older) reportedly flaunted the .32-caliber pistol in the boy's face. The adults who were responsible for allowing that child access to a gun should spend many long years locked in very small rooms.
Does anyone truly believe that a trigger-lock law would have saved Kayla's life? Even Josh Sugarmann, executive director of the Violence Policy Center, says trigger locks are not the answer. Of course, his logic veers to the left from there, deducing that if gun manufacturers actually produce "smart guns" that can only be fired by the owners, then more non-gun owners might buy them.
That, in Sugarmann's mind, would be a terrible, terrible thing because everyone `knows' that guns are the problem, not the minuscule number of people who misuse them. Heavens above, we don't want more law-abiding Americans practicing self-reliance and exercising their rights -- no, we don't.
Banish the thought that if a person is of legal age to own a handgun and isn't a criminal, it's absolutely legal to buy a gun -- "smart" or otherwise. Sugarmann wants to make ownership of handguns illegal for everyone.
"A `common-sense' approach to gun violence in America would be to ban handguns," Sugarmann wrote this week in a piece for `The Washington Post.'
How does forbidding me to possess a handgun -- a person who qualifies under the law and has jumped through all the government-imposed hoops necessary to receive a carry permit in this state -- cut down on gun violence? It doesn't. But you'd never know that by what Sugarmann and his ilk say.
Speaking of ilks, President Clinton has predictably used the Rolland tragedy to renew his call for tougher gun control measures. He, along with Vice President Al Gore and former Sen. Bill Bradley, have repeatedly cited the statistic that 13 children are killed daily in this country by gunfire.
Except that it's not true unless one considers 18- and 19-year-olds to be children. Some of the reports used by Handgun Control Inc. -- where the Dems get many of their figures -- to calculate the number of "youths" involved in gun violence include people as old as 24.
In which case Clinton was messing around with a "juvenile" when he and 22-year-old Monica Lewinsky were trysting in the Oval Office. Aren't there laws against that sort of thing?
The people railing for additional "gun control" measures aren't anti-gun. They are perfectly happy for law enforcement to have every conceivable firearm available because they live with the false belief that the cops will be around to protect them from harm in their time of need. What they don't want is for you or me to be able to own them.
That's not anti-gun; that's anti-rights. Mine and yours.
And the call for banning "cheap" handguns is about as racist a proclamation as one can make. The calls for eliminating "Saturday night specials" are nothing short of telling an entire spectrum of folks in this country that their lives aren't worth the same as thos of the people who can afford more expensive guns.
Alan Korwin, author and publisher of `Gun Laws in America,' put it well last month during his appearance at the Texas State Rifle Association's annual meeting.
"Just because a woman lives in a cheap apartment, drives a cheap car and eats cheap food, does that mean she can't have access to a cheap gun with which to protect her children?"
Reasonable question. Unfortunately, the answer from politicians attempting to cater to anti-rights advocates is, "No, she can't."
Jill "J.R." Labbe is senior editorial writer and columnist for the `Star-Telegram.' She can be reached at (817) 390-7599.
Send comments to jrlabbe@star-telegram.com