CA:Guns, guns, guns

Josey1

Guns, guns, gunsRaoul Contreras Commentary A Ranchita resident tied up North County traffic for hours not long ago because she was seen carrying a gun in her moving car and refused to pull over when directed to by sheriff's deputies and Highway Patrolmen. The woman has been convicted of illegally brandishing a gun in a threatening manner and of possessing a gun when she was prohibited from doing so, and she is paying her debt to society. Thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of North County people were inconvenienced by hours of delay on Highway 78. Once on my radio show, a North County man claiming to be a hunter called in a froth because I supported a ban on ownership of military-type automatic weapons such as the AK-47 Russian Kalashnikov assault rifle. He claimed that he needed the AK-47 to hunt deer because of rough terrain and the fact that deer were so swift. I maintained that such an argument was bogus: Rough terrain has nothing to do with marksmanship and hunting skill. Moreover, deer usually run gracefully, skillfully, not swiftly, through chaparral. It might be argued that a fully automatic AK-47 would make it easier for an unskilled hunter to mow down a deer, but so what? Is that our national mission: to mow down deer with machine guns and automatic rifles? Such weapons are designed to kill people, not deer. Any so-called hunter who claims, as this guy did, that an automatic weapon is necessary to hunt deer, or mountain sheep or antelope, is a nut case. The question is, then: Can this Ranchita woman, or anyone, be prohibited from owning a gun? Sure. Can hunters be told what kind of weapons they can use to hunt with? Of course. Can the American people as a whole be prohibited from owning guns? No. Can the government control or regulate gun ownership? Yes. For more than 200 years, U.S. courts have ruled that government can regulate guns. There has never been a U.S. court that has decided government could not regulate guns and gun ownership. Two judges of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans recently stated that gun ownership is a constitutional right based on the Second Amendment, but no court has ever ruled that citizens could not own guns. That's not the question. The question is, who can own a gun, where can they take it, and how can they use it? When, for example, I hear California gubernatorial candidate and former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan criticized for supporting the current 15-day waiting period for buying a gun, I react strongly. I support a 15-day waiting period that allows authorities to check the background of a gun purchaser. As a citizen, I am entitled to that background check. I ask Sheriff Bill Kolender to tell us exactly how many crimes are thwarted in North County by private citizens and their guns. And, as he is running for re-election, I'd like to know where he stands on waiting periods and gun regulation, and I'd like to know it before Election Day. It would also be interesting to know why commercial gun sales are allowed at Del Mar Fair grounds, which are owned by California taxpayers and policed by sheriff's deputies. North County Times columnist Raoul Lowery Contreras lives in Del Mar. 1/18/02 http://www.nctimes.com/news/2002/20020118/53032.html