"Mr. Bill Goes to Washington"
  03/15/2000

Washington's talking head is again busy shoving his foot down his throat, contradicting himself each time he opens his mouth about the controversial gun control issue. Well, it's not so much about gun control as it is about anti-gun legislation. There's a big difference in the terms. Gun control, depending which side of the street you live on, is one of two things. The first idea would be a steady grip, slow, steady breathing, and a gentle squeeze of the trigger. The second would be the definition of who is lawfully (read: legally) allowed to own weapons.

In just less than a month, two shootings that claimed national media attention prompted Clinton to demand that new, tougher anti-gun legislation be shoved down the throats of law-abiding Americans by Mr. Bill. Oops. Mr. Bill was a ball of clay. Sorry, I meant President Bill Clinton. It’s hard to tell the difference between the two sometimes. Both are simply talking heads with no viable evidence of substance inside their respective heads.

Clinton, claiming he was responding to two separate shootings in the U.S., each one day apart, called on federal lawmakers to approve anti-gun legislation.

Kayla Rolland, age 6, was shot and killed by a single .32-caliber bullet fired by a 6-year-old boy, a classmate, in fact. The other student, the shooter, whose name was not released because of his age, shot Kayla because of a playground incident the day before. The gun, which police say had been stolen by Robert Lee Morris III, 19, was taken to school by the 6-year-old. He took it from the house where he was residing while his father serves out a prison sentence and his mother attempts to find housing after being evicted from her former residence.

Genesee County Prosecutor Arthur Busch has brought charges of involuntary manslaughter against Jamelle Andre James, 19. Prosecutors said James kept a loaded pistol in easy reach of the troubled 6-year-old boy who allegedly took the gun and used it to kill Kayla, a classmate. Also indicted on March 16 were Robert Lee Morris 3d, 19; and Sir Marcus Winfrey, 22, along with James, for possessing stolen firearms and being unlawful users of marijuana in possession of firearms, U.S. Attorney Saul Green said.

Law enforcement officials in Michigan said Morris sold a stolen .32-caliber semiautomatic handgun in December 1999 that eventually wound up in the possession of James and Winfrey. That same .32-caliber hangun is the one that killed Kayla. Notice that the handgun did not ever lawfully belong to Morris, Winfrey, or James. It was a stolen firearm.

Green is to be investigating to the possibility of filing federal firearms charges against the boy, but there is a great deal of local speculation in Michigan that no charges will be brought against the boy.

The local Michigan prosecutors allege James kept the .32-caliber semiautomatic pistol loaded, twirled it on his finger like a cowboy in an old-time movie while in front of the boy, failed to keep it secure, and created "an atmosphere of reckless circumstances."

The prosecutors also allege that James kept a loaded pistol within easy reach of the 6-year-old inside the home of the child's uncle, Sir Marcus B. Winfrey. That conclusion must have been a tough one for prosecutors to reach. Did they call in rocket scientists to figure out how a 6-year-old got the weapon from a vault, a lockbox, or popped a trigger lock? I certainly hope not. The gun, it was reported, even before charges were filed, had been stolen and in James' possession. It was also reported, before the filing of charges, that James had the gun under blankets in his bed.

Police say the boy called James "uncle," but the two are not related. Winfrey has also been arrested since the February 29 shooting on unrelated stolen property charges.

U.S. Attorney General Saul Green is investigating to the possibility of filing federal firearms charges against the boy, but there is a great deal of local speculation in Michigan that no criminal charges will be brought against the boy.

Bond was set for $100,000 at James' arraignment. He said only "yes" when the judge asked if he understood the charge, and later flipped the bird for news photographers and cameramen. Perhaps it was his way of showing the world his IQ.

The other shooting that claimed national headlines was in Pittsburgh where a man, who happened to be black since moments after his birth, opened fire on several people in various locations. The victims all happened to have been white since birth. I’m certain that none of the other people involved, the victims themselves, had a choice of skin color before or after their birth, but for Ronald Taylor, the shootings were all about skin color.

Taylor is the very black suspect who went on a hate-crime shooting spree that left three people dead and two seriously wounded -- all of whom were white. He left a four-page suicide note and five pages of scrawling behind, intending to have died during his rampage. 

According to a story about the letters in the Pittsburgh Press, which had the opportunity to view portions of the two documents, Taylor's writings were "very legible but suffer from serious grammatical errors, fragmented sentences, numerous misspellings, profanity, and jump from lower case to upper case letters at random." 

The following are selected statements derived from the letters in police custody (complete with grammatical and spelling errors):

"So [expletive removed] Jesus Christ! You no good, heartless, evil, bias, favoritism, Jewish cold-blood [expletive removed] the entire world."

"I'm sorry, mother, for taking my own life with your gun that I sneaked for the second time in two years."

"Try to understand when a person is physically suffering for a long time...and I'm treated by racist, biased doctors and nurses who so often give me generic, cheap medication that is ineffective and cause return visits to emergency rooms that frustration so often set in. I get fed up with doctors treating black patients differently from whites in terms of unfairness unequality and like dirt."

The information coming out of Michigan offers little hope that America’s future is being secured for peace, warmth, compassion, racial harmony, and understanding. It also offers a view of concern that our children are also going to be so cold-blooded, having no morals, that the future may actually become a living hell on Earth.

From the comments in Brown's note, including his statement that he had taken (read: stolen) a handgun from his mother's home, twice in two years, it's clear to see that no law currently being proposed, or any that are on a drafting table, would have prevented the racial shootings in Pittsburgh.

Now, onto the talking head, um, Clinton, who had a speaking engagement at an Internet company in suburban Virginia just a day after the Pittsburgh shooting. As you read his asinine comments, keep at the forefront of your mind that he is using the timing of these two tragic events to push a program that has no logic.

In his speech, Clinton said the two shootings, each one day apart, made clear that Congress has not done enough to keep guns out of the hands of children and criminals. Perhaps he wants Congress to provide funding so a police officer could be posted at either end of every street in America, monitoring the gun-toting habits of each resident on the street.

He then called on lawmakers to approve measures he sent them several months ago, requiring handguns to be equipped with child-safety locks and tightening regulations on the sale of handguns at gun shows.

One source at Philadelphia’s "Ready, Aim, Fire," a local shooting range and gun-safety training center, said he would advise gun owners the best gunlock would be a cable. It looks like a bicycle lock cable, slides through the barrel, and then is secured with a lock. The cable would require removal of the bolt assembly or barrel.

Even with the cable lock, however, a hacksaw or other nifty device shown in horror films would come in handy for easy access. The only problem with the cable would be for homeowners who are also gun owners. Should the homeowner need access to the weapon of choice to defend family, life, or limb, they would need to have access to the weapon, the bolt, the trigger lock, and then re-assemble the weapon. All this takes precious time. It poses a significant loss of precious time in a situation that allows no extra time.

For the burglar who just stole your arsenal of handguns, pistols, and rifles from your fancy gun case, well, he won’t have too much of a challenge using your rifle for a shooting. He needs just a few minutes to knock off the trigger lock or cut the cable, and he’ll be off shooting. Just make sure you report the theft to the local cops. You don’t want to be implicated in some drug dealer’s hit, do you?

One final story published during this same time was posted to a Newsguy newsgroup on March 11, as I wrote this column. It reported that recent studies show three times as many people died last year because of physician mistakes than by gunshots.

The studies also indicate, according to the Reuters news story, that Americans are split in their decision over whether the greater is a need for laws disciplining negligent doctors or careless gun owners.

In the February Zogby American Values survey of 1,028 people nationwide, 43.1 percent of those surveyed (approximately 443 people) said they believe it’s more important to pass legislation that holds doctors accountable for mistakes rather than owners of guns used in a crime. Now go back and re-read this paragraph one more time, slowly, and focus on it for a moment before you read any further.

Another 40.3 percent of the people taking the Zogby survey (approximately 414 people) said they place a higher degree of importance in having the owners of guns prosecuted when someone else uses their firearms during the commission of a crime. 

There are statistics showing the majority of firearms used in these shootings by crazed people were not obtained in a legal manner. It doesn’t matter if it was a 6-year-old kid in a small town in Michigan, two idiot kids in Colorado shooting up a school and everyone they saw, or a black man in Pittsburgh. The weapons used during the actual act of these horrific shootings were not, I repeat, **WERE NOT** (note the emphasis here) obtained legally. Now you tell me how a gunlock, if used in the home of the legal owner of a gun, would have prevented any of these shootings. How would tougher gun purchasing laws have prevented just one person injured or killed in these shootings?

The remaining 16.6 percent of the folks responding to the Zogby survey weren’t sure what they thought on the survey issues. 

Zogby's results demonstrate that men were more intent on punishing negligent doctors than negligent gun owners while women disagreed. Perhaps it's the "compassion-for-the-victim" wiring that many women have. Men, I think, have internal wiring that allows them to understand the principle that when some crazed goof shoots someone with a stolen gun, the gun owner really didn't have a choice in the matter. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the gun owner gave the thief a "hit list."

From this vote-casting American veteran, Clinton can take his stupid ideas and file them in some wild and zany place that never sees the light of day. His idea is a good one -- for a country such as England, where shootings aren't even on a scale with that of the U.S.

Before anyone jumps on their soapbox, preaching how England is such a safe place to live because of the few shootings that occur there each year consider England’s population. No, I’m not going to mention the random Irish Republican Army’s (IRA) bombing sessions. It’s primarily English natives populating England, although it does have its share of immigrants. America, on the other hand, is a nation primarily composed of immigrants, save the few thousand American Indians that haven’t died off yet. 

When you mix all the cultures together, as they exist in America, then add in a share of racism, some bitterness, topped with unemployment, low wages, and hard-to-find reasonably priced housing, what kind of mixture do you think you are getting? It’s becoming a very volatile mixture. Oh, but wait, we aren’t done mixing yet. We haven’t added in the cost of rearing children, forgetting about the cost of their education. You also have to add in a few more things when accounting for the crazed shooter’s feelings. Add in a lot of personal frustration, some personal shortcomings in life, and add in generous amounts of low self-esteem, followed by a myriad of variable factors. Voila! The perfect recipe for making a sample of some of this country’s crazed shooters. 

Clinton and the backers of his proposal need to open their eyes and see the light of day. His proposal will do nothing to stop these shootings. His proposal is designed to slow down the response of legal gun owners in potentially defending their property.

  - by Dave Jackson (Scoop0901)