THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, November 2, 1994 TAG: 9411020001
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A20 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 52 lines
First, a deranged man deliberately crashed his small plane on the White House grounds in September. Then, on Saturday, an ex-felon who appears to be deranged peppered the presidential mansion with bullets from a semiautomatic Chinese rifle equipped with a 30-round magazine.
Was anyone outraged by either incident? Not so's you could tell. America, the beautiful, is, alas, also America the violent. What else is new?
Asked if President Clinton, who was home at the time, was frightened by the shooting, press secretary Dee Dee Myers replied: ``It isn't any more terrifying for him than it is for people all over the country.''
Well, people all over the country are alarmed by random violence, which includes drive-by shootings, highway gunplay and workplace, eatery, schoolyard and commuter-train massacres. Crime overall is down - but violent crime is up, up, up.
Which explains the push for tougher anti-crime laws and more prisons, more police, more gun-control measures. A million Americans are in prisons, and legions of others are in local jails, but the bloodshed worsens.
Few thoughtful observers of the carnage expect less of it despite billions spent on policing and punishment. Much of the slaughter is perpetrated by youngsters armed by guns easy to come by.
That the body count is disproportionately high in poor neighborhoods does not diminish the national distress. Many of us often don't feel safe and become prisoners in our own domiciles.
That sorry state of affairs was noted first in the 1960s. We've been tightening security since then. Home alarms are common, and walled-in and private-guard-patrolled communities are proliferating. New cars come with improved anti-theft and door-locking systems. Neighborhood-watch arrangements are widespread.
Since the suicidal plane crash, the U.S. Secret Service has been seeking ways to block air assaults on the White House. Now it must rethink its plans to keep gunmen at bay.
The challenge is to protect first families, regardless of their political affiliation. The two young men - tourists - who heroically tackled the gunman last Saturday did their part. But the shooting reveals a White House looks all too vulnerable to attacks by suicidal criminals, kooks and terrorists.
Maybe it can be made less vulnerable. But what about the rest of us? What can we do beyond the necessary crack-down-on-criminals strategies now embraced from coast to coast to reduce the violence that haunts us all? Must we simply resolve to live with it? by CNB