A Little Inconvenience to Save Lives : Instead of Westsiders arming themselves, how about random searches to get the guns that terrorize the poor, too?
A local magazine that touts the glories of life on the Westside (and, occasionally, parts of the Valley) has, in this month’s issue, an article that explains exactly why civilized people would be better off owning and carrying guns. The gist of this article and the personal testimonies that accompany it boil down to this: You’d better be armed, folks, because it’s a nasty world out there, and They are out to get you. Every illustration with the piece showed a grim white person holding or hovering near a firearm. Draw your own conclusions.
What the magazine doesn’t mention (because it usually doesn’t mention black people, for instance, at all--unless they’re holding basketballs or performing on screen or stage) is that there are many other people who do not have fancy businesses or lifestyles to protect, who pay their taxes, who have never committed a crime--who could also be categorized as one of the ethnic groups that are Them. And these people are scared to death, too.
Violent crime victimizes everyone, and inner-city residents know this better than the upper-middle-class folks who are self-righteously announcing that enough is enough, and it’s time to get a gun. The recent killings of two Marymount College students in a San Pedro carjacking only affirms this school of thought. But in all likelihood, having a gun would not have helped Takuma Ito or Go Matsuura at the critical moment. In such struggles, it’s usually the person being assaulted who is killed, even when the victim is armed. So arming the law-abiding citizenry isn’t the answer.
Maybe the answer is unannounced sweeps of California, a coordinated effort by local police and sheriff departments and the National Guard to rid the state of guns. Everybody’s guns. It would require arbitrary search and seizure and would make life miserable for all of us. Traffic would be snarled (because checkpoints would be established throughout cities, much like those at border crossings). Non-criminal development execs leaving chic eateries would be outraged to find that their Glocks had been collected from their Jeep Grand Cherokees left with the valet. Tough. All sorts of suits would be filed by lawyers, some of whom would fear having their own briefcases searched.
Police state! you scream. Fascist administration of law! I’m allowed to carry a gun--the Constitution says so! But the Second Amendment was written when the communal standards in this country were higher. Way before Los Angeles turned into Dodge City. Most of us no longer need to shoot our food (and if we choose to, we can rent a gun to do it.) Our armed forces, adjunct armed forces and police departments all have guns, and should. And it should end there. No exceptions.
That Americans have refused to enact laws to stringently limit gun ownership indicates we are either stupid or suicidal. If we don’t want greater Los Angeles to look like Sarajevo (and parts of it that many people seek to avoid already do), we’d better start looking beyond the panic of the well-off. If we want to get guns out of the hands of criminals, we non-criminals will have to sacrifice a little comfort. If it would save lives and improve the quality of life, my dignity could stand the assault.
Maybe then, foreign-exchange students could expect to receive a degree from their American experience instead of a slug. Maybe then, mothers in poor neighborhoods wouldn’t have to worry whether going to the corner store for milk or diapers after dark is worth possibly orphaning their children. Maybe then, the National Rifle Assn. could direct a fraction of the zillions it spends trying to defeat politicians who argue against the right to bear arms to the root causes that induce people to carry guns in the first place.
Gun deaths have become so common that we tend not be moved by them unless we can personalize the tragedy, as the killings of Miami tourists, the two Marymount students and Yoshihiro Hattori in Baton Rouge, La., last year, illustrate. Maybe what it will take to enact a strict gun-control law is to have every anti-control legislator and lobbyist (or one of their loved ones or friends) threatened by the guns they seek to keep on the streets. It’s a gruesome thought, and not one I’m advocating. But the cynic in me suspects something would be done, quickly, should that occur. Why wait? Let’s stop the madness now.