Profound, timely, solutions to spree killers

Note: I finished this at 8:30 a.m. and didn’t hear the news out of NYC until noon. How sadly prophetic.

It’s been, I guess, a week or so since another spree killer made the national news. Or maybe not.

It’s been 20 minutes since I last checked the headlines. A lot can happen in 20 minutes.

What I can guarantee hasn’t happened is that anyone has proposed a fresh solution to our national insanity. This summer’s relentless violence has produced a collective sort of shrug.

It’s like we as a nation have decided there’s an acceptable body count that goes along with bestowing even mentally disabled or disgruntled white men the absolute right to possess a few semi-automatic AR-15s with 100-round ammo drums capable of killing 140 people in 140 seconds.

In fact, that’s short-changing the weapon. I read that bullets from the AR-15 -- it’s the kind the Aurora killer James Holmes used -- can be counted on to go through not one but two people at a time.

So it’s theoretically possible an AR-15 bullet could hit the Syrian butcher Bashar al-Assad -- yea! -- travel through his body and lethally ventilate Nelson Mandela -- boo!

The scenario reminds me of a pivotal scene from Clint Eastwood’s great 1992 Western, “Unforgiven.”

A naive young assassin nervously gloats about gunning down an unarmed man who’s pants down and seated on the outhouse crapper.

“Well, I guess he had it coming,” the kid says.

“We all have it coming, kid,” wise old Clint says.

Sure we do. We all go to the movies, the churches, the taverns, the gyms, schools, work and the shopping malls -- all sites of recent spree killings.

That anyone in these dangerous times should feel safe while seated on the toilet seems to me a charming notion. Or should I say a Charmin notion!

I believe I stand alone in trying to change the dynamics of this peculiar national tragedy. It was I who offered the Barney Fife Amendment, which would allow anyone, anywhere, to carry a loaded gun.

One condition: you get just one bullet. Use or lose your bullet and in addition to any existing laws you have to go before a judge to explain what happened to your bullet before you get another bullet.

This got zero traction, I’m sorry to say, as did my idea of smart bullet innovation. I suggested the government offer incentives to develop smart bullets that would decide in mid-air if the intended targets deserve killing and then select a more deserving victim.

This is all about preserving innocent collateral damage. The beauty of smart bullets is that in many cases the bullets will reverse and strike the person who fired it, saving police departments a fortune.

Then after the Aurora killings I offered the idea that we could reduce gun violence by having the NRA administer a truly well-regulated militia, the belief being there are more regulations involving the needle artists responsible for tattooing our hillbillies than there are for guns.

This, too, landed with a thud. None of my gun-owning friends said they wanted to sweat out their Saturday hangovers doing calisthenics at the local high school rec fields.

That’s where we are in the gun debate. Every sensible argument offered by people who think there are too many guns, has been gunned down by the people with, duh, all the guns.

The only solution to our near weekly sensational spree killings, they say, are more guns in more places. They think if only there’d been armed hombres like them in the theater, they would have cooly risen amidst the hail of bullets and taken down the killer with one shot.

I think they’ve seen too many movies.

But because I believe the blood-drenched status quo is wholly unacceptable, I at last surrender to their logic.

Let’s try installing racks of loaded guns right next to the fire extinguishers. Signs on the glass can read, “IN CASE OF SPREE KILLER BREAK GLASS.”

There, of course, may be unintended consequences. Angry drunks may break the glass to settle parking space disputes, spouses may escalate infidelity arguments with handy firearms, and there are bound to be casualties involving ticket takers, young mothers or 12-year-old kids who picked the wrong day to see the Batman movie.

Oh, well. Let’s just figure they’ll all have it coming.

By doing continuing to do absolutely nothing, I’m convinced we all do.

Reduce gun violence: Enforce 2nd Amendment

Gun violence will be reduced when America decides to enforce what is to me the key phrase of the 27-word 2nd Amendment, so revered by our nation’s gun nuts.

And that’s mostly everyone who owns a gun. They love their guns and believe their guns are essential to their soulful peace of mind.

I understand those feelings.

I feel the same way about my family.

Where we differ is I’d never in a drunken or pre-meditated rage use my wife or one of our daughters to kill someone else. The things I love do not take life. They exalt it.

It’s been three days and I’ve only read one sensible discourse on the latest spree killer who didn’t break a single law right up until the instant he began pulling the triggers.

It was by lefty Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne. Here he describes how the NRA uses its influence to impose a de facto gag order on those who believe in common sense gun.

About that, Dionne’s absolutely right. Anyone who says these frequent tragedies should cause us to rethink our approach to spree killers is accused of exploiting the deaths and nothing gets done.

So let me offer a solution even the single-minded maniacs at the NRA will endorse.

Let’s reduce gun violence by enforcing word-for-word the 2nd Amendment.

Not only will it reduce violence, it will reduce health care costs, it will stabilize the country and decrease the amount of money the federal government spends on defense.

The 2nd Amendment says: “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

Let’s parse it. You’re certainly familiar with the part that reads “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

In fact, it might be the only part of the phrase most gun nuts even recognize. It is clear and absolute.

But it’s only part of it.

To me, the key phrase is never mentioned or argued in court fights over gun rights.

That is the three-word clause the Founding Fathers judged important enough to put right up front.

The security of a free state, they said, depends on “a well-regulated militia.”

What’s well-regulated about today’s gun owners?

We put more restrictions on needle artists who tattoo our hillbillies.

Gun ownership should involve mandatory participation in a local militia that meets at least once a month to drill in fitness and firearm safety measures.

Sound like another expensive government intrusion, a way for jackbooted thugs from the ATF to round up your guns?

Have the NRA run it.

I have great respect for true sportsmen and can see logic in aspects of even some of the nuttier positions espoused by the gun lobby. No one would be better running a national militia program aimed at gun safety.

The NRA would regulate who gets and who gets to keep guns.

This stipulation might very well have prevented the Aurora tragedy.

Glenn Rotkovich is the owner of the Lead Valley Range in Byers, Colorado. He refused to let killer James Holmes join his gun range after hearing a “bizarre,” guttural and unintelligible recorded phone greeting. Concerned, he told employees Holmes should not be allowed to fire weapons until he personally checked him out.

Oh, how I only wish the NRA would sanction that kind of hands-on background check playing a role in who gets lethal weapons.

If Holmes tried to obtain a weapon, he’d first be directed to a well-regulated militia outfit and screened by a man like Rotkovich. And let’s for the sake of argument assume Rotkovich, a gun range owner, is pro-guns.

It’s so simple.

It would also reduce the number of deaths by people who own guns because guns make them feel tough. You read about them in the news every weekend.

They shoot fellow bar patrons after getting into cross-tavern staring contests, road rage over perceived slights at traffic signals, and come home and rain gunfire on their angry wives for gently suggesting maybe they should find a job.

Tough guys? Monthly NRA-sanctioned drills and fitness programs would discourage them from wanting to own a gun, preferring Saturday morning couch comforts to sweating out TGIF hangovers at the local high school track.

Gun owners would be more fit, more civic minded and could be used to help provide national security. It could be like an adjunct National Guard, a proud national organization that is strengthened, not weakened, by being well-regulated.

I admire the previously cited Dionne column, but believe he’s wrong in one key aspect: The NRA doesn’t need less influence.

It needs more.

It needs more power, more responsibility.

Please, please, NRA -- for God’s sake -- take some responsibility.

Safety lessons from spree killers, '12

I’m re-posting, as I always do after most headline-making rampages, my 2009 piece about what we’ve learned from spree killers.

I’ve been doing this at least once a year for the past three years. The only thing that ever changes is the body counts.

Neither side on the gun control debate ever offers anything fresh to end the carnage. One side thinks we’d be more safe if everyone had guns; the other side thinks no guns is the solution.

I tried most recently in 2010 to find some middle ground with this idea a friend calls “The Barney Fife Amendment.”

The thrust is everyone gets to carry a loaded gun anywhere they want: churches, airplanes, hospital birthing units, courtrooms, etc.

But you only get one bullet.

If you use or lose your bullet, in addition to any existing laws, you need to go before a judge to explain what happened to your bullet before you get another bullet.

I resort to absurdity when my cynicism over deadly stalemates overwhelms my optimistic nature.

So there’s nothing new here. Feel free to skip if it starts to sound redundant. After all, the ever-numbing news of spree killers has become all too redundant, as well.

Safety Lessons from Spree Killers

What we’ve learned from recent spree killers:

• It’s unsafe exercising in places dedicated to strengthening and prolonging life (George Sodini, LA/Fittness, Pittsburgh, August 4; three dead).

• It’s unsafe to be an armed, on-duty police officer responding to routine calls (Richard Poplawski, Pittsburgh residence, April 4; three dead).

• It’s unsafe to be an aspiring American, an immigrant drawn to our shores by the promise of a better life (Jiverly Wong, American Civic Association, Binghamton, N.Y., April 3; 13 dead).

• It’s unsafe to want to live out your golden years at a remote retirement home (Robert Stewart, Pinelake Health and Rehab, Carthage, N.C., March 29; eight dead).

• It’s unsafe to attend a place of worship (Terry Ratzman, Living Church of God, Brookfield, Wisconsin, March 12, 2005; seven dead).

• It’s unsafe to shop (Robert Hawkins, Von Maur Department Store, Dec. 5, 2007; eight dead).

• It is unsafe, for the love of God, to be an Amish schoolgirl (Charles Carl Roberts IV, West Nickel Mines Amish School, Bart Township, Pennsylvania, Oct. 2, 2006; five dead).

All told, the random teachers listed here killed 47 people they’d never met and wounded hundreds more. The anecdotal tally could be higher if we included the dead who learned too late it is unsafe to go to places like work or school, but we already knew that.

None of these other-wise law-abiding individuals committed a single crime until the second they pulled the triggers on their legally purchased semi-automatic weapons.

Want to be safe?

Get a job in the U.S. Capitol.

It is there that each and every one of the more than three million annual visitors gets marched through state-of-the-art magnetometers before being allowed entry.

Want to be less safe?

Continue to live without complaint amidst the carnage and under the laws our elected officials continue to pass.