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| Myths About Gun Control | |||
Case Study: John Hinckley's Attempted Assassination of President Reagan. Although John Hinckley purchased his weapon in Texas, where there is no waiting period, he could easily have purchased it in almost any other state, including those with waiting periods. Hinckley had no criminal record and no public record of mental problems. Moreover, since he bought his weapon five months before he tried to kill the president, even a waiting period of several months would not have affected the outcome. Among the tragic consequences of Hinckley's action were the disabling injuries suffered by Reagan's press secretary, James Brady. Through his wife and a lobbying organization, Brady has been advocating the passage of the Brady bill - which would impose a national waiting period on gun purchases. Even if the Brady bill were law, however, it would not have protected James Brady. Case Study: Mass Murders in Stockton, Calif. Using a rifle that looked like an AK- 47, Patrick Purdy fired into a schoolyard, killing five children in January 1989. Prior to the shooting, Purdy had successfully completed a 15-day waiting period in California, where a check of his records found that he had no felony conviction. Seven previous felony arrests had all been plea-bargained to misdemeanors. If any one of those had not been plea-bargained, and if he had been convicted, it would have gone on his record. Nor did his records mention the evaluation made earlier in the El Dorado County Jail in which Purdy was judged to be suicidal, homicidal and extremely dangerous. Case Study: The Murder of John Lennon. On December 8, 1980, Mark David Chapman shot John Lennon to death in New York City. Chapman bought the pistol legally in Hawaii after a seven-day waiting period. He had no previous criminal record. Indeed he was a security guard and no gun control law that anybody is proposing would have stopped him from having a gun. Case Study: Mass Murder in Canada. Marc Lepine walked into a classroom at the Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal on December 6, 1989, sent all the men out, called the women “a bunch of feminists” and began shooting. He killed 14 women and wounded 12. He used a semiautomatic Ruger mini-14 rifle which he purchased legally after having been checked and cleared by the Canadian police. He had no previous criminal record. Sources: Gun Week, April 12, 1991, p. 4; Gun Week, December 22, 1989; and David V. Kopel, The Samurai, the Mountie and the Cowboy (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus, 1992). |
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