Irish Echo Editorial: Guns on the street

Two veteran NYPD detectives, Patrick Rafferty and Robert Parker, were gunned down in East Flatbush while answering a call from a woman whose son had taken her car without permission. Police said that when the officers approached the son, Marlon Legere, a scuffle ensued and Legere, a man with a long criminal record, managed to wrestle Det. Parker’s pistol from him and fire seven shots at close range, hitting both men in the chest. Two more heroes dead on the mean streets of an American city.
In an sad quirk of fate, the deaths of Rafferty and Parker came just three days before the U.S. Congress allowed the federal ban on assault weapons to expire, an unconscionable and irresponsible decision, one that will no doubt mean more dead cops — and more dead civilians — in the years ahead.
No, Rafferty and Parker weren’t killed by an assault weapon, but the renewed presence on the street of high-power, military-style weapons can only mean trouble for everyone, particularly for those living in inner-city neighborhoods that have enjoyed a precipitous drop in violent crime since the ban was introduced.
The ban was passed into law 10 years ago, in the face of stiff resistance from the National Rifle Association, as part of a $30 million bipartisan crime bill. It prohibited the manufacture and sale of 19 types of weapons and magazines holding more than 10 bullets. Among the weapons largely removed from circulation were Uzis, AK-47s and Tec-9s, hardly the weapons of choice for hunters and target shooters but favorites among criminals.
The law, though imperfect, was highly successful — and popular. A recent National Annenberg Election Survey found that 68 percent of Americans supported renewing the ban. As the Los Angeles Times noted in an editorial last week: “No legal owner has been denied a weapon. No weapon has been confiscated. Yet the supply of these weapons on the streets has declined.” So, wondered New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, who co-wrote the bill, “how did we get in this Alice-in-Wonderland situation of repealing a law that everyone agrees has been so successful?” How indeed.
The answer, as usual, can be found in politics or, more precisely, with politicians. With the presidential election season in full swing, our elected officials succeeded in turning the issue of public safety into the proverbial political football.
Most egregious has been the president himself. Mr. Bush had stated his support for the ban but did nothing to push for an extension. Why, after all, would he risk angering his base is in the run-up to Nov. 2? Why risk losing all those crisp NRA greenbacks? Why not try to have it both ways? The foundation of President Bush’s reelection campaign has been his contention that he has been an effective leader against terror. But one could be forgiven for wondering whether the war on terror might benefit just a little from keeping a lid on the sale of dangerous weapons on the open market. The long arm of Homeland Security apparently reaches only so far.
This is not to let John Kerry off the hook. Fond of portraying himself as a lifelong hunter, he made nary a peep about the likelihood that Congress would not extend the ban until it was almost too late. On Monday he offered a $5 billion, 10-year anti-crime agenda that would include restoring the assault-weapons ban as well as beefing up police departments nationwide. Good stuff. But in the meantime, Uzis will be flying off the shelves.
The Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution has long been one of the hot-button topics of American public discourse. But it seems reasonable to allow law-abiding Americans the freedom to own firearms while keeping military-style weapons tightly controlled. After all, as the grieving families of Dets. Rafferty and Parker know only too well, the streets are mean enough as it is.