PAFOA in Beaver County Times

Edit: Sorry, I just saw that this was already posted in the news section.

http://timesonline.com/articles/2008...6867328736.txt

GUNS: A RIGHT OR A SOCIETAL ILL?
The Times/KEVIN LORENZI Paulette Woods, director of S.A.V.E. holds a framed portrait of her son who was killed by gun violence.

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By Larissa Theodore, Times Staff
Published: Saturday, March 29, 2008 10:32 PM EDT


THE ARGUMENTS

Here’s what local officials have to say about the gun issue:

U.S. REP. JASON ALTMIRE, D-4, McCANDLESS TWP.

In Altmire’s opinion, the Second Amendment allows the right to bear arms, and Philadelphia, like Washington D.C., would be included in that same argument.

Within the last month, Altmire and hundreds of other congressional leaders signed an amicus brief to the Supreme Court supporting that fact, that the court should uphold the constitution and overturn the D.C.’s ban on handguns.

“I think we have a Congress that the majority supports the Second Amendment and believes we don’t need more gun laws, just better enforcement of the laws on the books.”

Altmire say the ultimate way to decrease gun violence is to put away the criminals who use them.

“Gun violence by definition is people breaking the law, and drugs are a huge part of it in the inner cities… It’s not the gun that is causing them to commit the act.”

ALIQUIPPA POLICE CHIEF RALPH PALLANTE

Pallante doesn’t believe the firearms industry should bear financial liability for homicides, nor does he believe more laws are the solution.

“I think the laws are OK,” Pallante said. “I think the punishment should be a little stronger, but there are enough laws in place. I think it’s the punishment that needs to be given out.

As for stricter laws, Pallante said he believes it would only affect law-abiding citizens.

“Bad people are still going to have their guns. They don’t care about the laws,” Pallante said.

BEAVER FALLS POLICE CHIEF MICK JONES

Jones doesn’t believe there is a “100 percent solution” to gun violence.

“Is there a greater access to getting a hold of guns? Yes … but a lot of people are law-abiding citizens that are responsible and not involved in crime. People in crime are more involved (with guns).”

DARLINGTON RESIDENT KEITH McCUE

An avid hunter, McCue, 23, said he was raised around guns. Growing up, he and his brothers were often given toy guns to play with. But even then, there was a line they couldn’t cross.

“Toys we got that looked like actual guns, we weren’t allowed to point them at each other. If me and my brothers pointed them at each other, they got smashed,” he said.

A January burglary at McCue’s Darlington home ended in gunfire, state police said, after two men barged through the front door of 800 Plumb St. around 5:30 a.m. McCue, his pregnant wife, Sheri, 21, and the couple’s 1-year-old daughter were sleeping when Sheri McCue awoke to the silhouette of a man inside the couple’s bedroom.

Keith McCue told The Times in January that one of the men had grabbed a 30/30 rifle from inside his house, and one passed the rifle to the other while they were in the bedroom. McCue said he grabbed a .40-caliber handgun that he keeps at his bedside, chased the men from the bedroom and fired one shot, which struck Gary W. Brooks II, 26, of 103 First St., Darlington, in the head. Brooks crawled to the front door and collapsed, police said.

Kelvin E. Raines, 41, of 1700 Sixth St., New Brighton, was able to escape, but earlier this month was ordered to stand trial. Brooks hasn’t been charged yet as he undergoes rehabilitation for his head wound.

McCue said he believes having a gun that January morning saved his family, and he now sleeps with a handgun at his side. But McCue said the intent of a gun “all depends on whose hands the guns are in.”

“If they are in the right hands, they protect you,” he said.

THE GUN DEBATE

Gun violence has increasingly worsened across the nation, with the more high-profile cases producing higher and higher body counts. According to the FBI, 72.6 percent of all murders reported to police in 2005 were committed with a firearm, which increased to 73.4 percent in 2006, with no sign that the gun-related homicide rate is going to drop off any time soon.

Now the country’s gun debate is heating up again. The Second Amendment, which gun proponents say guarantees all individuals the right to bear arms, is under a microscope as the U.S. Supreme Court has begun hearing arguments regarding gun ownership rights in a case originating in the District of Columbia.

IN WASHINGTON

The District of Columbia’s 32-year-old handgun ban, perhaps the strictest in the nation, led Dick Heller, 65, an armed security officer, to file suit after it rejected his application to keep a handgun at his home for protection. Heller contends that the city’s more-than-three-decades-old law prevents him from defending himself at home, although the purpose of the law was to prevent violent and accidental gun violence. Supporters say passing the law was necessary, while challengers call it unconstitutional.

IN PITTSBURGH

Dr. Emma Mosely, director of community collaborative project at Duquesne University, says an increase in gun violence compelled the university to put together a national symposium on handgun violence, “to help people understand the importance of taking responsibility for the guns they have.”

Campus shootings are rampant in the United States. The country reported three within one week in 2006 from the end of September to the beginning of October. Among them, five Duquesne University basketball players were shot as they left a dance at the student union.

The violence is spreading on school campuses as well. Five girls were fatally shot and six others injured during the shooting at a Pennsylvania Amish school in 2006.

“Handgun violence is sort of a growing epidemic,” Mosely said.

Duquesne’s April 9 symposium will feature such speakers as Jim Brady, press secretary to President Ronald Reagan, who was shot during an assassination attempt in 1981, and Tom Mauser, father of a Columbine High School shooting victim.

Mosely said the event aims to examine violence in American schools and cities, and violence aimed at public officials. The free event is open to the public.

“I hope people get out of it the need to be responsible handgun owners,” Mosely said.

Paulette Woods felt her world come crashing down seven years ago when her 31-year-old son was murdered, shot in the back at a friend’s Moon Township home.

“I lost my mother when I was 31 and my dad when I was 33. That was hard. But losing a child was the hardest thing I ever went through in my life. That was my baby.”

Woods, director of the Aliquippa-based SAVE — Standing Against Violence Everywhere — said detectives in Moon have not given up on the homicide case, but no one has been arrested for the crime.

People such as Woods who have experienced loss through gun violence believe more should be done by way of tougher laws and penalties that will prevent additional bloodshed.

The debate over gun-control laws has long been a dividing issue among Americans. While some believe that “guns kill,” others believe that gun ownership is a constitutional right. Now the Supreme Court is considering a case that may once and for all define whether Americans have a “right to keep and bear arms” and whether that definition goes beyond service in a militia.

Woods said she believes there should be stiffer penalties for gun violence, particularly for those who are unlicensed to carry weapons or for criminals who aren’t allowed to possess weapons.

“I think they’re too easy to get,” said Woods, of Monaca.

SIGNIFICANT DECISION

Daniel Pehrson, founder and president of the Pennsylvania Firearm Owners Association, said his organization sides with Dick Heller, a 65-year-old armed security officer, whose suit against the District of Columbia is now being heard by the Supreme Court.

“The Second Amendment to the constitution guarantees a pre-existing, individual, human right to keep and bear arms,” Pehrson said. “Therefore we also strongly side with Heller in the argument that D.C.’s firearm regulations violate that right and should be struck down.”

Either way, the high court decision will be significant because it will define the amendment’s meaning, which the court has not conclusively interpreted since the amendment’s ratification in 1791.

From a political standpoint, regardless of the ruling, Pehrson said D.C.’s laws have done nothing to prevent or lower crime within the district, as evidence by the crime rate there. He said the laws have only accomplished “disarming law-abiding citizens leaving them defenseless against the very criminals D.C. is apparently unable to control.”

STEVE HENRY III

But Woods’ son, Steve Henry III, wasn’t armed when he was shot down in the kitchen of his friend’s home in the Mooncrest neighborhood. Henry was heating food in the microwave when he was hit by a series of bullets fired through a back door. A woman and child were on the second floor at the time, according to reports from Allegheny County police. The woman heard the shots and found Henry lying on the floor. Woods said there wasn’t enough evidence to convict anyone in the case of her son,

“There are people that know what’s going on that have information, and they won’t tell,” Woods said.

“When you don’t have enough evidence to go to trial, everything is out the window.”

On Sept. 1, 2001, three days after her son was murdered, Woods’ cousin, Darryl Spencer, was also shot and killed. The moment will stay with Woods and her two other children, daughter Dawn, 35, and son Terry Jr., 34, forever. Walking past Steve’s old bedroom and knowing he’s not there, she said “kills me.”

A few years ago, she became very afraid and strict with Terry, always wanting to know where he was.

“Once you lose a child, you become very protective of your children,” she said.

GUN-CONTROL LAWS

The Supreme Court’s decision, on whether Washington’s handgun ban can stand, will also help to evaluate other gun-control laws. The decision could affect Philadelphia, where a similar battle over control gun ownership is also being fought and where a homicide rate of 400 a year has earned the city nickname “Killadelphia.”

With no weekly or monthly limits on gun buys, officials in Philadelphia have argued that the city has become a source of guns for New York and other cities with stricter laws. Last year, Philadelphia passed ordinances to ban assault weapons, control the sale of ammunition and require reports on lost or stolen guns. But none of the provisions have become law because of a 1974 statute that gives Pennsylvania lawmakers sole power to regulate state gun sales.

Philadelphia earlier this month took the case to court, asking for the authority to adopt local gun-control measures to protect the public. Lawmakers have moved to dismiss the city’s suit.

Even ex-criminals with felony records and minors have firearms, according to the U.S. Justice Department, which reports the United States has the largest number of privately owned guns in the world, with an estimated 250 million privately owned firearms nationwide. In 2005, 477,040 victims of violent crimes stated that they faced an offender with a firearm. And somehow those guns have been finding their way into the hands of juveniles.

Woods said she isn’t sure how that happens, but SAVE has been working to get a bill passed that would get children off the streets and give them positive activities to participate in. Members recently gathered for a meeting at Woods home.

“The violence is getting younger and younger. Children don’t have anything to do,” she said. “You think loving your child is enough to keep them safe, but that’s not true. That’s not true at all.”

Larissa Theodore can be reached online at ltheodore@timesonline.com.