Gun Violence Is Out of Control : A Single Day’s News Provides Ample Reasons for Tougher Restrictions

It took only one day last week to present several reminders of the pervasiveness of guns and gun violence in our region. On Monday, a 14-year-old Sylmar boy was arraigned on charges of premeditated attempted murder, attempted robbery and assault with a deadly weapon in connection with the Dec. 15 shooting of a Chatsworth High School student.

In the Antelope Valley, a timely bit of kindness eased a family’s financial concerns, but not its pain. A Newhall mortuary decided to provide a casket, funeral service and burial free of charge to the family of Rayshaun Love. The family didn’t have the money to pay for it. Love was shot and killed on Dec. 19 when he tried to shield two girls from gunfire at a party.

In Santa Clarita, a federal judge raised to $350,000 the bail for a Valencia man who was accused of keeping such an arsenal of unregistered guns, ammunition and explosives in his house that 32 nearby homes were evacuated before all of it was removed.

And on the same pages that day, there was yet another indication of the fact that some folks just haven’t gotten the point yet. It came from an interview with a Chatsworth gun instructor who said, “An armed society becomes a very polite society. Very polite.”

But we are already living in the midst of one of the most heavily armed, free and so-called civilized societies in the history of humankind. There are some 200 million firearms in circulation in the United States right now, and the number is continually on the rise. Since October, 500 people in Los Angeles County have died from gunshots. Gabriel Gettleson was wounded when he refused to give up his book bag to a robber. Love was killed when another teen-ager allegedly grew upset over spilled beer on his shoes and started shooting. And one wonders how safe a particular Valencia neighborhood felt when it was learned that one resident was so heavily armed.

There are so many guns in circulation that a detective with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department laughed bitterly when asked how youths might acquire one. “Everybody has them,’ the detective said. “They are accumulated, stored, sold or traded on a daily basis. There is a general ease in obtaining them. Everybody seems to know who has them (guns). It’s just like drug sales.”

When gun possession is that easy, it ought to be painfully obvious that the gun problem has spiraled out of control.

The only way to end this type of senselessness and potential danger is to impose a near-total federal ban on the manufacture, sale and private possession of handguns and assault weapons. With few exceptions, possession should be restricted to law enforcement officers alone.

Without such a ban, the wishful “it can’t happen here” map will continue to dwindle in size.