Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
Former New York Mayor Bloomberg suggests we take guns away from Black males aged 15-25 because that’s the group that commits most of the murders. He’s partly right.
Nobody aged 15-20 – Black or White, Male or Female – should be carrying a pistol since it’s against the law for anybody under 21 to buy, possess or carry a pistol. Yes, take those guns away.
And nobody aged 21-25 – Black or White, Male or Female – should be carrying a pistol in public without a Permit to Carry since that’s also against the law. Yes, take those guns away, too.
If we could enforce those two sets of existing laws, we’d take illegally carried pistols out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them in the first place and that should take a bite out of gun crime. It’s a wonderful idea but, as always, the devil is in the details: how do you pick those people – and ONLY those people – out of a crowd?
Maybe if we limit the focus to illegally carried pistols? Gun murders are mostly committed with pistols and pistols contain a big chunk of metal. Metal detectors set at reasonable sensitivity could find concealed pistols without singling out every single person for frisking.
Anybody who sets off the metal detector gets waved aside for further processing. Show me your Permit to Carry and Driver’s License and you’re on your way. Minimal intrusion.
Set off the metal detector and no Permit to Carry? Voluntarily show me the leg brace that set it off or wait here for police to frisk you. Slightly more intrusive, might be ways to mitigate it (state-issued “metal plate in head” card gets you through without frisk).
Probably only install them at large gathering places like Vikings stadium, shopping malls, Super Target and nightclubs in downtown Minneapolis . . . but if society wants to get serious, the Mayor has at least given us food for thought. We have the technology. Do we have the willpower?
Joe Doakes
Joe errs a bit – in most states, 18 year olds can own guns, and in many they can get permits (although not Minnesota, where a 20 year old military veteran can come home from a year in Afghanistan, or from driving a nuclear submarine, and not get a permit). For better or worse.
“minimally intrusive” is a relative term. I had the vision of police “spot checks,” setting up a detector in the middle of the Nicollet mall and funneling everybody through it. Not “intrusive,” perhaps, but bothersome as all get-out even for the completely innocent. And the question is one of effectiveness. Check every one of the 50,000 people at a Vikings game, or entering the Megamall, and how many illegal guns will you find? How about setting up in the most gang-infested black neighborhood, near a known hangout, is that “racist”? Nope, great in theory, too flawed in practice. NYC’s “stop and frisk” was vastly more effective.
And, should legal adults be required to obtain a permit to exercise a Constitutional right?
New York city had a great idea. Give police officers discretion to frisk somebody and if it turned out they had a gun illegally take it. The current mayor and blacks had gone to court and asked for a court order to stop that from happening.
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN