Guns Are Really Not the Answer : Officials who carry them are setting the wrong example

Simi Valley Councilwoman Sandi Webb was raped several years ago in a San Bernardino apartment complex. Despite her screams, none of the nearby residents came to her aid.

Few of us (we hope) will ever experience such a horrible event, or such lousy neighbors. Good neighbors, in our mind, are those who band together in Neighborhood Watch groups to be on the lookout for strangers, who will call 911 and who will make enough of a racket to frighten an attacker away.

Webb bought her first gun after she was raped. And when William A. Masters II recently killed a graffiti vandal in Sun Valley who had menaced him during a post-midnight walk in a dangerous neighborhood, Webb was quick to voice her support for the gun-toting pedestrian. That was in spite of the fact that Masters was illegally carrying the pistol. Now, Webb proudly proclaims that she illegally carries a concealed weapon--a handgun--every time she drives into Los Angeles. Worse yet, through her public comments she let people know how easy it would be for them to do the same. Her past trauma notwithstanding, elected officials can hardly be more irresponsible than this.

“They would have to search me to find out if I had a weapon, and to do that they would have to have probable cause. I don’t think that is going to happen,” Webb said.

Her colleagues were appalled, although too reserved in responding. The best comment came from Paul Miller, a former Simi Valley police chief and now a City Council member. “I don’t think we want to send the message out that we’re a town of gunslingers. We all have to abide by the law,” he said.

And lest the Masters case stand alone in the national spotlight, consider the case of Chatsworth’s Scott Howard Breverman. He claimed self-defense when he fatally shot a 16-year-old in the back of the head when a group of youths vandalized his BMW. A jury didn’t buy it, quickly finding him guilty Thursday of second-degree murder. He could serve 17 years to life in prison. We think the jury made the right call. We wish others would exercise similarly responsible judgment.