Part 5 (2/2)
* As her children watched, a woman upset over a custody battle shot her ex-husband to death with a pistol in the parking lot of Dade's main juvenile court.
* Four friends out cruising in North Miami decided to play Russian roulette with a .38-caliber pistol. Jose Cotto, age 14, lost. He was the third teenager to die this way in Dade County since January.
* Police arrested two men for the robbery-slaying nine months ago of a children's ice-cream vendor near Kelsey Pharr Elementary School. Authorities noted that this murder was not related to the robbery-shooting of another ice-cream vendor near the same school in January.
* A former member of the Yahweh religious sect pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the shooting deaths of two tenants who refused to leave an Opalocka apartment when the Yahwehs tried to evict them.
* In Fort Lauderdale, a Canadian tourist was shot to death in his beachfront hotel room while Spring Breakers partied along The Strip.
* Burglars who broke into a Northwest Dade home stole a 9mm handgun, an Uzi semiautomatic machine gun, a .32-caliber pistol, a 12-gauge shotgun and a Beretta of unspecified caliber.
This is only a recent sampler. Yet, anyone can plainly see that not one of these incidents resulted from so-called ”loopholes” in Florida's firearms laws.
So maybe next time a Mr. Smartypants Liberal wants to write a book, he'll buckle down and do his homework.
A gun problem? Us? What an imagination, this guy.
Legislators, we're dying for gun law April 29, 1988 So the madness goes on.
Another policeman falls, while the clowns in Tallaha.s.see argue about whether Key lime or sweet potato should be the state pie. Earlier in the week, they haggled intently over the selection of a state sand.
But don't worry. The true sweat and toil for this legislative session has been saved for the burning issue of repealing a motorcycle helmet law.
Just amazing.
How many cops do we have to lose before somebody up there gets some guts?
How many funerals will it take? How many manhunts? How many pictures of anguished relatives rus.h.i.+ng into hospital emergency rooms?
Last year, the Legislature sent a lenient new message about handguns, and this year we got it. The homicide rate is way up, and more cops are down.
Let's hear it for some of the const.i.tutional champions in the Legislature who gave us these murderous laws: Larry Plummer, John Hill and the two Lehtinens; Don Childers of West Palm Beach; Jim Scott and Tom Gustafson of Fort Lauderdale; Arnhilda Gonzalez-Quevedo of Coral Gables; Ron Saunders of Key West; Ray Liberti ofWest Palm Beach; Anne Mackenzie and Debby Sanderson of Fort Lauderdale; Luis Morse, John Cosgrove, Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Javier Souto of Miami; Roberto Casas of Hialeah; Robert Starks of Homestead; and our very own NRA poster boy, Al Gutman.
Hope to see all of you dropping by Jackson Hospital to wish Officer James Hayden a speedy recovery.
The madness is as uncivilized as it is intolerable. We are past the point of scaring off tourists; we're scaring off good cops. Anyone in his right mind would think twice about putting on a badge in a state that abides such bloodletting.
Officer Hayden was wounded during a routine traffic stop on a busy street-four weeks to the day after fellow officer Victor Estefan was murdered under similar circ.u.mstances. In the last month, three Miami policemen and a state trooper have been shot by motorists.
I would not blame Chief Clarence d.i.c.kson for telling his officers to treat every traffic violator as a potential killer; to approach every car with guns drawn, antic.i.p.ating another freak with a Smith & Wesson in his lap. Why not? This is the new code of the street.
Finally, the mayor is talking about a trip to the capital to discuss the gun law. He ought to charter a plane and take a delegation in blue. All of us react more viscerally to the shooting of a law enforcement officer, and we should. If the police aren't safe, n.o.body is. Yet, at the same time, we shouldn't forget the daily blood bath that doesn't make the front page.
A week ago, J. D. Davis was killed in his front yard when he was. .h.i.t by a stray bullet from a neighborhood crack dispute. Davis wasn't a cop; he was just an innocent guy with a wife and kids. He could have been your husband, your brother, your son, your father.
Some people say that it's already too late; that once a society arms itself as prolifically as South Florida, there is no disarming it. To some extent, this is true. Once the guns are sold, they only come back as police evidence in robberies, murders, suicides. Even then, they don't always come back.
A few days ago, police say, a man drove out to a South Dade tomato field and killed his wife with a gmm handgun, then shot himself. By the time officers reached the scene, a pa.s.serby had already stolen the dead man's gun.
The answer to this madness is not acceptance, and it's certainly not more handguns. A beginning would be a new set of laws, starting with one that makes it illegal to have a pistol in your car, period.
If you had met Jim Hayden's a.s.sailant under more casual circ.u.mstances and asked about the handgun in his Malibu, he probably would have told you he was carrying it for protection. He would have told you it was his right, just check the law.
Victor Estefan's killer could have given you the same line.
And G.o.d help you if you disagreed.
New NRA ad misses the mark May 23, 1988 The National Rifle a.s.sociation has kicked off a frantic counteroffen-sive in Florida with new radio commercials designed to scare every law-abiding citizen into buying a handgun.
Displaying its usual disregard for facts, the NRA a.s.serts that strict handgun laws will punish only the innocent, because criminals don't apply for gun permits.
Wrong. In Dade County, one out of 15 applicants for a new concealed-weapons license has a felony arrest record. Since the new laws took effect, violent drug dealers, home invasion robbers and mental defectives have gotten legal gun permits-despite the NRA's a.s.surance that no such thing could happen.
Under fire from angry const.i.tuents, legislators are fumbling around with a sham response-a whopping three-day waiting period. This won't accomplish anything, except to allow these wimps to slink home from Tallaha.s.see and claim credit for a ”tougher” gun law.
Meanwhile, it's been another typical week for handguns in South Florida. A 10-year-old Richmond Heights boy, upset over a bad school performance report, killed himself with a .357 found under his parents' bed. In Coral Springs, an investment counselor shot an ex-employee four times and then himself over a labor grievance.
The NRA ads imply that a pistol in the nightstand is all that stands between a free society and a criminal siege. Fear sells, and n.o.body sells it better than the NRA.
If you really want to feel safe and secure, consider the number of handguns that enter the criminal underworld every day. The NRA seldom confronts the issue of where these guns come from-the guns used to shoot at cops and store clerks and cas.h.i.+ers.
Guess where they come from. A sample from the last three weeks: A .45-caliber handgun was stolen from a truck parked outside the Suns.h.i.+ne Medical Center on Southwest 72nd Street.
A .357 magnum was stolen from a man who was attacked by three a.s.sailants in West Dade.
A .38-caliber revolver was stolen out of a Chevy Blazer parked in the 24700 block of Southwest 87th Avenue.
A .38-caliber Smith & Wesson was stolen from an apartment on the 8400 block of Southwest 107th Avenue.
A thief who stole a 1987 Ford Bronco on Southwest 63rd Street also got a .357, which had been left in the truck.
A 9mm handgun was stolen from the glove box of a Buick parked at Westchester Hospital.
A thief who stole a Ford pickup on Northwest 109th Street also got a .38-caliber pistol and .22-caliber handgun, both of which had been left in the truck.
A .38 was stolen from a parked car in the 1100 block of Northwest 128th Street.
A 12-gauge shotgun and a .357 Smith & Wesson were stolen from a home in the 16000 block of Northwest 45th Avenue.
A .38 Smith & Wesson was stolen from under a mattress inside a house trailer in the 6000 block of Southwest Eighth Street.
A .22-caliber semiautomatic Beretta was stolen from a diesel repair shop on Okeechobee Road.
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