Choose Your Weapons
IT'S BEEN BUT six weeks since a man with a gym bag full of firearms and ammunition gunned down seven co-workers at a Massachusetts software company, all in a matter of minutes. Now a bloody sequel: Another man with a golf bag full of weapons went on a rampage at an engine factory west of Chicago, killing four employees and wounding four others before killing himself. Total elapsed time: again, only minutes, maybe eight to 12. The weapons of choice in Chicago, as in Massachusetts, included an AK-47 assault-style rifle -- designed for deadly efficiency.
Terrorized survivors, returning to the plant yesterday, were told by counselors that there is almost no way to avoid such tragedies. One worker said a counselor told him that "this is something that's almost unpreventable, something happening all over the country now." That's what the AK-47 apologists and others who oppose effective controls on the supplies of firearms in the country like to hear. After all, they argue, violent people have all sorts of deadly weapons at the ready -- knives, clubs and so on.
True, an attacker without a gun can terrorize an office. Only last week, a former teacher walked into an elementary school west of Philadelphia with a machete and attacked the principal. But the principal and two teachers struggled with the man and subdued him. The principal suffered severe cuts to her hands; three other teachers and six kindergartners suffered injuries. But no one died. Would the outcome have been different had this attacker used an AK-47? Would the string of multiple slayings over recent years in U.S. workplaces, schools and churches have been as deadly as they were if handguns and assault-style weapons were not sold in this country? Must Americans accept such quick and deadly violence as "almost unpreventable"?
© 2001 The Washington Post Company
Dick
IT'S BEEN BUT six weeks since a man with a gym bag full of firearms and ammunition gunned down seven co-workers at a Massachusetts software company, all in a matter of minutes. Now a bloody sequel: Another man with a golf bag full of weapons went on a rampage at an engine factory west of Chicago, killing four employees and wounding four others before killing himself. Total elapsed time: again, only minutes, maybe eight to 12. The weapons of choice in Chicago, as in Massachusetts, included an AK-47 assault-style rifle -- designed for deadly efficiency.
Terrorized survivors, returning to the plant yesterday, were told by counselors that there is almost no way to avoid such tragedies. One worker said a counselor told him that "this is something that's almost unpreventable, something happening all over the country now." That's what the AK-47 apologists and others who oppose effective controls on the supplies of firearms in the country like to hear. After all, they argue, violent people have all sorts of deadly weapons at the ready -- knives, clubs and so on.
True, an attacker without a gun can terrorize an office. Only last week, a former teacher walked into an elementary school west of Philadelphia with a machete and attacked the principal. But the principal and two teachers struggled with the man and subdued him. The principal suffered severe cuts to her hands; three other teachers and six kindergartners suffered injuries. But no one died. Would the outcome have been different had this attacker used an AK-47? Would the string of multiple slayings over recent years in U.S. workplaces, schools and churches have been as deadly as they were if handguns and assault-style weapons were not sold in this country? Must Americans accept such quick and deadly violence as "almost unpreventable"?
© 2001 The Washington Post Company
Dick