To Live and Die in L.A.

It is the nature of one who toils for a living to try by whatever means available to make his or her job easier.

I, for instance, have been exploring the possibility of devising a software program with which I would only have to push a few keys to produce a column.

By pre-programming a series of subjects, tones and points of view into a computer and garnishing them with required parts of speech, I might at least come up with a basic, reusable outline. I’m working on it.

I mention this to explain why it is only natural that Police Chief Daryl F. Gates would similarly explore ways to make his job easier. By that I mean, shooting casual drug users.

It modifies an earlier Good Idea that involved the use of an armored battering ram to enter rock houses. The ram, alas, proved excessive and went the way of chlorophyll martinis and pet rocks. So now we have Good Idea No. 2.

Gates’ latest suggestion has raised cries of protest by civil libertarians, mothers of teen-agers and those inclined, as he says, to “blast some pot on a casual basis.” Not the best choice of words, but the man’s a cop, not a poet.

When pressed to explain what he meant by wanting to shoot casual users, Gates said he meant just that. Blow ‘em right out of their Dockers. But he failed to explain what advantages this would offer society.

In addition to making a cop’s job easier by simply shooting a druggie rather than being forced to drag him through due process, you also hit crime right at the beginning.

Those who are properly shot will never go on to become burglars, rapists, killers, inside traders, spies, journalists, flag burners, Democrats or others of a suspicious nature.

Shooting crime in the crib, so to speak, is not only convenient, it’s patriotic.

Gates isn’t the first chief to recommend a method of crime control guaranteed to make our lives easier.

A predecessor, Ed Davis, suggested several years ago that people who hijacked airplanes ought to be hanged at the airport.

He wanted to set up a portable court in a bus, try the hijacker en route from jail to LAX and then string him up on the Tarmac.

The idea made sense, not only because it simplified a tedious process, but also because it was rooted in tradition. Giving ‘em a fair trial and then hanging ‘em was, after all, how we won the West.

While the idea never caught on, we were so pleased with Ed’s thought processes, we elected him to the California state Senate, in whose intellectual body he continues to serve.

Subsequent to that, Santa Monica Police Chief James Keane, not to be outdone by the cowboys in L.A., came up with yet another way of dealing with those inclined to felonious pursuit. He sent them to Miami.

To many, of course, this is a fate worse than death. Being shot by Gates or hanged at the airport by Davis is preferable to a long sentence in a city where, as Lenny Bruce once said, neon goes to die.

What precipitated Keane’s action, you might recall, is that a Miami judge ordered a prostitute to serve time in Santa Monica. But while she was here, the sex market collapsed and she was never heard from again.

The felon sent to Miami, on the other hand, apparently found the weather and the social climate to his liking and almost immediately exposed himself in public. I’m not sure what happened to him after that, but I hear he was sentenced to life in Bakersfield.

It might surprise you that I am willing to discuss the Chief’s crime-prevention technique in such rational, non-hysterical terms. It’s just that I feel it has potential in other areas of daily life.

If we shot a few oil barons, for instance, there would probably be less price-gouging, and one or two S&L; executives might think twice about ripping us off if they faced a similar form of instant reprisal.

When I asked others who they’d like to see shot, they mentioned lawyers, perky news anchors, insurance claims adjusters, pit bull owners and people who hold their crotches while singing the National Anthem.

They don’t have to be criminals to qualify. Anyone you don’t like will do.

My own preference is drivers who cut in front of me and doctors who employ the editorial we to discuss my pain. I mean our pain.

If you play the game correctly, you’ll see the point Chief Gates was trying to make, despite later efforts by his army of apologists to say what-the-chief-really-meant-was.

I think he meant what he said. Don’t coddle ‘em. Don’t arrest ‘em. Don’t ride ‘em out of town. Blow ‘em to hell, no questions asked.

Wise-ass sales clerks, kids who cut school, members of the ACLU, cop-haters, liberal politicians, crying babies . . . line ‘em up.

Who’s next?