Getting Fingers Off Triggers
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By Colbert I. King
Saturday, July 28, 2007; A19
In announcing his intention this week to seek a Supreme Court ruling upholding the District's strict gun laws, Mayor Adrian Fenty said, "The handgun ban has saved many lives and will continue to do so if it remains in effect." Can't argue with that. Gun control advocates tell us that a gun kept in the home is more likely to be used in an unintentional shooting or in an attempted or completed suicide than in self-defense. What's more, the combination of guns and domestic violence is lethal. So, yes, the ban has probably saved lives.
But has the 30-year-old gun ban made our streets any safer? Since the handgun ban has been on the books, the criminally minded have been using guns with a frequency that rivals breathing.
From 1987 through Wednesday, there have been more than 6,400 homicides in the District of Columbia, most committed with firearms. That figure doesn't include non-fatal shootings.
This year, the 7th Police District in Southeast Washington alone had noted 181 shootings up to Wednesday, according to Post reporter Allison Klein. And robberies by gun-wielding thugs? The Post's weekly Crime Report noted 44 gun-related robberies between July 6 and 12.
We have one of the country's toughest handgun laws. I fear we may also have more weapons than the Iraqi army.
In the past five years, the D.C. police have taken more than 12,000 firearms off our streets. Guess what? Only 161 were acquired through gun buy-back operations.
Which gets us to the heart of our problem: the bitter fruit we're reaping from the catastrophic breakdown of family and community. Behind the guns are young men so desensitized by their upbringing and their surroundings that the welfare of others counts for nothing and remorse is a word without meaning.
The use of a gun to rob, to mete out pain and to exact revenge comes to them as easily as the ability to tie a shoelace.
These are angry, poorly schooled youths, abandoned by fathers, neglected and abused by ill-prepared mothers, raised on mean streets, who have drifted into lives of crime without even a tug at the coattail.
Now they have guns and no feeling for other people's feelings.
That coldness, that disregard for another person's life, is what lurks behind:
· The 11 people wounded in six shootings during a two-hour span a week ago.
· The killing of a man and wounding of three others in a drive-by shooting a week earlier.
· The death of a man who was shot in the head late Tuesday.
· The man found dead early Wednesday morning with several gunshot wounds.
An initiative announced yesterday by Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, Prince George's County Executive Jack Johnson and Fenty is aimed at drying up the supply of guns -- and catching those who use them. Both goals are critical. But reaching people before they want to shoot and kill is the real solution.
This brings me to Wednesday afternoon on Raleigh Place SE outside the headquarters of Peaceoholics, a conflict-resolution group that works with youths. Frustration and anger at the current wave of drive-by shootings were on display.
D.C. Council member Marion Barry (D-Ward 8) told the people assembled there that he's been to 60 funerals for teenagers and is tired of it. He led onlookers in chants of "Stop the drive-bys!" and "Enough is enough!" His admonition to "do the right thing," coming from him of all people, took my breath away.
Peaceoholics co-founder Ronald "Mo" Moten called for a "code in the streets" to brand drive-by shootings as acts of cowardice.
Fenty was there as well. He announced a two-week extension of the city's summer jobs program and urged cooperation with the police. D.C. Council member Kwame Brown (D-At Large) was on hand, too. He, too, urged a change in the code and said the community should "make it uncomfortable for those who commit drive-bys."
The Rev. Donald Isaac, executive director of the East of the River group, challenged pastors and parishioners to open their doors, "come out of the safety of your churches and sanctuaries" and get involved with young people in the community.
My childhood friend Tyrone White, who lives on Raleigh Place, spoke feelingly about the absence of love in the lives of youths and reminded the gathering that when he and I were growing up in the West End-Foggy Bottom area, disputes were settled with fists, not guns.
But the real story on guns and violence concerns the work being done by groups such as Peaceoholics when the cameras and reporters are gone. Because of parental default, they -- and hundreds like them in the community -- have become surrogate dads, intervening in the lives of young people on the edge with the kind of teaching, support and tough love missing in the young people's homes. They're the surrogates who are going into the jails and youth detention centers in attempts to reclaim lives given over to violence. They're the ones with fingers in the dike, trying to avert the disaster taking shape on our streets.
[email protected]
--
By Colbert I. King
Saturday, July 28, 2007; A19
In announcing his intention this week to seek a Supreme Court ruling upholding the District's strict gun laws, Mayor Adrian Fenty said, "The handgun ban has saved many lives and will continue to do so if it remains in effect." Can't argue with that. Gun control advocates tell us that a gun kept in the home is more likely to be used in an unintentional shooting or in an attempted or completed suicide than in self-defense. What's more, the combination of guns and domestic violence is lethal. So, yes, the ban has probably saved lives.
But has the 30-year-old gun ban made our streets any safer? Since the handgun ban has been on the books, the criminally minded have been using guns with a frequency that rivals breathing.
From 1987 through Wednesday, there have been more than 6,400 homicides in the District of Columbia, most committed with firearms. That figure doesn't include non-fatal shootings.
This year, the 7th Police District in Southeast Washington alone had noted 181 shootings up to Wednesday, according to Post reporter Allison Klein. And robberies by gun-wielding thugs? The Post's weekly Crime Report noted 44 gun-related robberies between July 6 and 12.
We have one of the country's toughest handgun laws. I fear we may also have more weapons than the Iraqi army.
In the past five years, the D.C. police have taken more than 12,000 firearms off our streets. Guess what? Only 161 were acquired through gun buy-back operations.
Which gets us to the heart of our problem: the bitter fruit we're reaping from the catastrophic breakdown of family and community. Behind the guns are young men so desensitized by their upbringing and their surroundings that the welfare of others counts for nothing and remorse is a word without meaning.
The use of a gun to rob, to mete out pain and to exact revenge comes to them as easily as the ability to tie a shoelace.
These are angry, poorly schooled youths, abandoned by fathers, neglected and abused by ill-prepared mothers, raised on mean streets, who have drifted into lives of crime without even a tug at the coattail.
Now they have guns and no feeling for other people's feelings.
That coldness, that disregard for another person's life, is what lurks behind:
· The 11 people wounded in six shootings during a two-hour span a week ago.
· The killing of a man and wounding of three others in a drive-by shooting a week earlier.
· The death of a man who was shot in the head late Tuesday.
· The man found dead early Wednesday morning with several gunshot wounds.
An initiative announced yesterday by Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, Prince George's County Executive Jack Johnson and Fenty is aimed at drying up the supply of guns -- and catching those who use them. Both goals are critical. But reaching people before they want to shoot and kill is the real solution.
This brings me to Wednesday afternoon on Raleigh Place SE outside the headquarters of Peaceoholics, a conflict-resolution group that works with youths. Frustration and anger at the current wave of drive-by shootings were on display.
D.C. Council member Marion Barry (D-Ward 8) told the people assembled there that he's been to 60 funerals for teenagers and is tired of it. He led onlookers in chants of "Stop the drive-bys!" and "Enough is enough!" His admonition to "do the right thing," coming from him of all people, took my breath away.
Peaceoholics co-founder Ronald "Mo" Moten called for a "code in the streets" to brand drive-by shootings as acts of cowardice.
Fenty was there as well. He announced a two-week extension of the city's summer jobs program and urged cooperation with the police. D.C. Council member Kwame Brown (D-At Large) was on hand, too. He, too, urged a change in the code and said the community should "make it uncomfortable for those who commit drive-bys."
The Rev. Donald Isaac, executive director of the East of the River group, challenged pastors and parishioners to open their doors, "come out of the safety of your churches and sanctuaries" and get involved with young people in the community.
My childhood friend Tyrone White, who lives on Raleigh Place, spoke feelingly about the absence of love in the lives of youths and reminded the gathering that when he and I were growing up in the West End-Foggy Bottom area, disputes were settled with fists, not guns.
But the real story on guns and violence concerns the work being done by groups such as Peaceoholics when the cameras and reporters are gone. Because of parental default, they -- and hundreds like them in the community -- have become surrogate dads, intervening in the lives of young people on the edge with the kind of teaching, support and tough love missing in the young people's homes. They're the surrogates who are going into the jails and youth detention centers in attempts to reclaim lives given over to violence. They're the ones with fingers in the dike, trying to avert the disaster taking shape on our streets.
[email protected]
