THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 14, 1995 TAG: 9507140002
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Short : 41 lines
There is no comfort for anyone in the assurances by law-enforcement agents that the mail-bomb explosion that injured two employees of a Raleigh, N.C.-based telecommunications company was not the work of the infamous Unabomber. It's not the source of the mail-bomb that alarms anyone; it's the danger itself.
No one is immune to random violence. But mail-bomb crimes by the Unabomber and others years ago transformed the routine act of opening letters and packages into a macabre lottery that maims and kills its ``winners.''
The Unabomber is an anti-technology nut. Another mail bomber, subsequently put away, was a racist. Yet other mail bombers have been sorely aggrieved because they believed someone or the system or whatever had done them wrong. Mail-bombers have this in common: They are cowards who ambush innocents.
America is not uniquely the land of wackos. Deranged and evil people exist everywhere and in every time. But Americans are especially vulnerable to criminal violence because of the great range of freedom and swift mobility available to so many, along with easy access to an endless arsenal of deadly weapons and materials.
The United States may well be unique also in the generally high quality of its crime-fighting abilities. If catching and punishing criminals deters some criminal acts, then catching and punishing the Unabomber and whoever perpetrated the crime in Raleigh might cause some wannabe mail-bombers to reconsider their ambition, although the publicity about the bombings themselves almost certainly will inspire imitation. Nonetheless, We dare to hope that the Unabomber and the Raleigh bomber will be collared by the law and locked up for a long time. There's a smidgen of comfort in that. by CNB