THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 30, 1995 TAG: 9507280012
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J4 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Short : 43 lines
The gun purchasers in ``Gunning for a permit'' (MetroNews, July 23) are to be commended for learning basic safety procedures, and the instructor's attitude sounds sensible. I'm not too worried about these people.
What gives me the shivers are others I've read about recently. Like David Smith, the ``churchgoing man with no history of family, legal or financial problems,'' who killed his two teenagers and then himself with a revolver. Or the electrician in Los Angeles, a 12-year employee of the city, who shot and killed four supervisors in a high-security complex.
Or the man in Texas who cut off his son's head, then pitched it out of his car window when police chased him. Or Susan Smith, who drowned her two little boys because they were interfering with her sex life. Or O.J. Simpson, who is accused of killing his estranged wife and a man he suspected of being her lover. And on and on and on.
Most or all of these people would have been eligible for concealed-weapons permits in Virginia. Would the governor and all the other NRA hacks in the legislature feel comfortable in a restaurant or theater full of people such as those above, who might be carrying semiautomatic pistols and revolvers on their persons or in a handbag? People under emotional stress don't necessarily broadcast that they're about to do something violent and criminal. They snap, suddenly, and innocent victims die.
Even the latest candidate proposed for Jack the Ripper, an American doctor practicing in London a century ago, would have been approved for a Virginia concealed-weapon permit. Comforting, isn't it? He could have quadrupled his murders in the Old Dominion.
Someone who has a genuine need for a concealed weapon should be able to get one, but there should be stringent safeguards to keep them out of the wrong hands. Virginia's legislature has produced a blueprint for great personal tragedy for our citizens.
RICHARD G. PARISE
Virginia Beach, July 23, 1995 by CNB