Gun Stuff

I would have missed this first-class piece of commentary if not for my friend Richard Dalton. Following is an editorial by Tom Stewart-Therkeld of Interactive Week magazine. I found it particularly thoughtful and courageous for someone in the Internet publishing business and sent a response, something I rarely do, but probably should do more often. Malice in Wonderland Some intractable problems seem simple to solve. If your humble servant were running this Great Land of Ours, the proliferation of guns would be brought under control without batting an eye. The retail, mail-order and Internet sales of firearms would be banned. In fact, police stations would become the only outlets for purchasing guns. Stores of all kinds - physical and digital - would be out of the bullet business. And the only valid reason for being issued a weapon would be demonstrable concern for personal safety. Registration of the firearm would be part of the purchase, naturally. Yes, criminals would have more guns than law-abiding citizens. But that will always be the case. And, yes, it would put an end to sporting use of firearms. But shooting any living being has never seemed to be very sporting. That hardly seems debatable anymore; but debate it we will, even in light of what has happened in Colorado, Arkansas and elsewhere. Why our schools have become shooting galleries is a subject that could bedevil us for the rest of our lives. What is only slightly comforting is that, at least so far, the Internet has not become a rich resource for the arming of Americans. Trigger.com still only takes you to the site of an Internet access provider in Canada. As Senior Writers Randy Barrett and Karen J. Bannan found in Inter@ctive Week's May 3 Cover Story, it may be easy to buy drugs and alcohol without much background checking, but picking up a gun is not easy. Just like the use of the phone, automobile and other tools, we can't kid ourselves: There will always be ways to conduct illegal transactions via the Net. Encrypted e-mail is a perfect medium for conducting such business, which is why law enforcers want so badly to decipher it. Uncontrolled auctions are another. And only if we're into self-delusion can we any longer convince ourselves that violent video games, dark role models such as Marilyn Manson or hate sites on the Web don't desensitize an already insensitive society - or push fragile, ill minds over the edge. It's time for the makers of Doom and Quake to turn in their Ferraris and earn their next millions trying to undo the damage they have done to human instincts. The human race has enough malice in its heart - see Kosovo - without getting any helping hands from interactive role-playing. It's also time, though, for law enforcers, school administrators and even neighborhood watches to recognize that the Web is a starting point for fighting back. Never before have we had the chance to know so much about our friends, neighbors and classmates - without even breaching their privacy. Young people in particular love to tell you more about themselves than you might care to know, as was demonstrated in Littleton, Colo. Monitoring Web sites for insight into our fellow human beings should and will become a common practice. But the truly determined maniac will learn how not to leave any clues out in the open - on the Web or elsewhere. Over the long haul, we will find that the only weapons we have to fight back with are our hearts, minds and souls. Humane interaction is the only way out. Richard Dalton's Response: Thanks, Tom, for a well thought-out (and felt) editorial (May 3, 1999). I’m sure you’ve had rabid responses from Early American gun-toters. Unfortunately, a large group of Late American gun victims can’t comment. Yet it still seems to surprise us in this country, that the right to shoot at things means the risk of being shot at. And this even applies to the people we love most. After all this debate, one question always remains for me: how many children are we willing to sacrifice to preserve the Right to Bear Arms?