Wright from Washington City

^{May 25, 2000}

No guns & ammo for you!

By DAVID T. WRIGHT

APBnews, a Website devoted to public safety issues, recently reported that the Los Angeles police commission has voted to require background checks for people buying not just guns but also ammunition. This, of course, in the face of the fact that people can buy ammo not only in the surrounding counties but also through the mail, perfectly legally.

A bill containing the proposal will be voted on soon by the L.A. City Council, and it's being introduced in the San Francisco City Council as well. It was developed in consultation with the California state Ministry of Love, with the idea that cities all over the state will each be able to adopt a uniform proposal. And, of course, after that, it'll be easy to pass a state law.

As California pro-gun types are pointing out, limiting ammo sales won't do much to deter criminals, because they don't use a lot of bullets. The people who do are security guards, private citizens, etc., who expend ammunition in target practice — in other words, in practicing gun safety. Less ammo, less safety training. Makes sense to me.

But Billie Weiss, director of Injury and Violence Prevention for the Los Angeles County Department of Health, sees the ammunition-control bill as a potential asset to public safety. "As a public health person, anything that reduces the access and availability of weapons and ammunition is helpful to law enforcement and potentially saves lives," said the grammatically challenged Weiss, who also heads the Violence Prevention Coalition of Greater Los Angeles. No conflict of interest there!

Note the increasingly popular classification of violence as a "public health" issue. Besides being a bare-faced power grab by health-care barons, it's a great propaganda ploy. It implies that the whole issue can and should be handled by faceless technocrats, with none of the emotional arguments about "rights" and other nonsense currently mucking up the effort to build a safer, softer world.

But even so, Weiss has a point. And I think we should start confiscating weapons where it will do the most good. The fact is that a handgun possessed by a police officer or other "law-enforcement" minion is about five times more likely to be misused than one held by an ordinary civilian. So, using the Gun Nazi logic apparently embodied in the ammo scheme, if you train people heavily in police tactics and firearms handling, they become more  likely to blow somebody away for the wrong reason or to leave their sidearm lying around so little Jason can plug his playmates. And, in fact, here in the Imperial City, a number of cops have been arrested for shooting people on their own time, which is still officially frowned upon.

Let's stop fooling around and get serious about gun control. Take the guns and ammo away from the cops, and take a huge bite out of a grave health threat!

What do you think of Wright's analysis? If you'd like to see your brief comments posted on the site, please respond here.

All comments will be subject to the usual editing, and we will be looking for those that are the most thought-provoking, pro or con.

Return to the David T. Wright section.

Notice  to visitors who came straight to this document from off site: You are deep in The Last Ditch. You should check out our home page and table of contents.