Each month, the Advocate visits with Sgt. Jim Little, Sr. Cpl. Rick Janich and Officers T.X. “Tri” Ngo and Wes Stout, who are stationed in one of the Dallas Police Department’s storefronts (670-5514). The storefronts are best-known for bicycle-patrol officers. During the upcoming months, the officers will discuss law enforcement topics related to everyday life in Dallas. (Stout was on vacation and did not participate in this month’s discussion.)
Advocate: It seems like an awful lot of people have been getting shot lately. For example, there was just a big gunfight between two kids in Oak Cliff, where both kids ended up dead and a bunch of their friends were wounded. And of course, there’s the stuff with the Branch Davidians down in Waco. What’s going on?
Jim: I don’t really think there’s more of it. I just think there’s more publicity for those incidents.
Rick: Last weekend in East Dallas, we had some kids – one who was nine years old – who shot and killed another kid. He just go a hold of his dad’s gun, took it out of the pouch, and another tragic gun accident occurred.
My personal feeling is that some sort of gun control is just around the corner, whether it’s the Brady Bill (a federal proposal to delay gun purchases for several days to initiate background checks on purchasers) or some other legislation.
Jim: What they’re out for with the Brady Bill is abolition, total restraints on firearms. The Waco deal, the foolish people in the neighborhoods who stand on the front porch and shoot their guns into the air, they’re playing right into the hands of people promoting these bills.
Rick: Just today, on the Morning News’ metropolitan page, a story identifies a guy who shot a neighbor, mistaking him for a prowler. Now, the guy was in his house, so he has a right to protect the house and all of that, but…
Advocate: I would think that with you guys being police officers, you’d want to see a lot fewer guns on the street. My parents called from Minnesota the other day to say they’d heard on television that in Texas, private citizens have an average of four guns apiece. I guess that includes children, too.
Rick: As officers, we’ve just got to remember, that when we deal with people, it seems like virtually everybody out there is carrying a gun. Maybe the solution is education – when you use a weapon, or where you keep it stored.
Jim: Look at at from another viewpoint: If there are four guns out there for every resident, look at how few of these shootings we’ve been talking about really happen. There are literally thousands of people who have guns in their homes who never use them carelessly, recklessly, or whatever. Those are the people who are deprived of their rights under gun control.
Right now, we have laws on the books that felons can’t carry guns, but that doesn’t seem to make a difference. We have plenty of laws, but they aren’t being enforced. I have no problem with the waiting period. But I personally, not as a police officer, am opposed to gun control.
Rick: I don’t know that there can be a happy medium when you talk about gun control. Where do you draw the line? Who is really a “sportsman”, or who really needs to carry a gun?
Jim: I do know that our new president (Clinton) is the first one who isn’t totally opposed to gun control, so we’ll see what happens.
Tri: The waiting period – what good is it? Most criminals don’t buy their own guns anyway, they just take them from someone else.
Jim: Just like Prohibition didn’t stop alcohol consumption, gun control won’t stop violent crime.
Rick: But Texas is certainly one of the most lenient gun-purchasing states in the country.
Jim: Do you know what it takes to buy a gun in Texas?
Advocate: Well, no. I suppose you go to K-mart, pick out what you want and then fill out a form or something, right?
Jim: If you go to a federal firearms dealer, you have to sign a form saying you aren’t insane or a convicted felon. That’s all. Then they’ll sell you a gun.
But if you don’t want to sign anything, you just go to one of the gun shows they have around here every couple of months and buy what you want.
Really, if I wanted to buy a gun, I’d just go to the gun show and buy one. They’ve got a much better selection than registered dealers, and the prices are more reasonable. And the guy selling you the gun – he typically doesn’t ask any questions, as long as you can afford a gun.
For anyone to think that if we had total gun control, those idiots in Waco wouldn’t have guns, that’s foolish. If you’ve got the money, you can get the guns, legally or otherwise.
Advocate: Regardless, though, it just seems to me that if there are more guns around, there’s going to be more trouble. Wouldn’t it be easier for you cops if only the cops and the bad guys had guns, and the rest of us didn’t have them? Then, if you are in a situation where someone else has a gun, you’d pretty much automatically know they were a bad guy.
Rick: It’s hard to see how this is all going to work out, really. I think the answer is training, where everyone who owns a gun should have to take a mandatory training course before they can buy the gun.
Advocate: But we’ve got people running around town who don’t even have time to take care of their kids properly. There’s no way those people are going to take the time to enroll in a gun-safety course.
Jim: Really, the answer to personal safety isn’t buying a gun and sticking it in the drawer of your house…
Rick: Or your purse or pocket.
Jim: The answer is personal training to make sure you know how to use a gun, well it can just as easily be used against you as to protect you.
Rick: It all gets back to education. You have to know what you’re doing, and you have to shoot a gun frequently so your skills don’t deteriorate and your weapon doesn’t malfunction. Once you pull that trigger, it’s over. The bullet is not coming back.
Jim: So, for heaven’s sake, if you own a gun and have to use it, be sure of your target.
