I would not blame Chief Clarence Dickson for telling his officers to treat every traffic violator as a potential killer; to approach every car with guns drawn, anticipating another freak with a Smith & Wesson in his lap. Why not? This is the new code of the street.
Finally, the mayor is talking about a trip to the capital to discuss the gun law. He ought to charter a plane and take a delegation in blue. All of us react more viscerally to the shooting of a law enforcement officer, and we should. If the police aren’t safe, nobody is. Yet, at the same time, we shouldn’t forget the daily blood bath that doesn’t make the front page.
A week ago, J. D. Davis was killed in his front yard when he was hit by a stray bullet from a neighborhood crack dispute. Davis wasn’t a cop; he was just an innocent guy with a wife and kids. He could have been your husband, your brother, your son, your father.
Some people say that it’s already too late; that once a society arms itself as prolifically as South Florida, there is no disarming it. To some extent, this is true. Once the guns are sold, they only come back as police evidence in robberies, murders, suicides. Even then, they don’t always come back.
A few days ago, police say, a man drove out to a South Dade tomato field and killed his wife with a gmm handgun, then shot himself. By the time officers reached the scene, a passerby had already stolen the dead man’s gun.
The answer to this madness is not acceptance, and it’s certainly not more handguns. A beginning would be a new set of laws, starting with one that makes it illegal to have a pistol in your car, period.
If you had met Jim Hayden’s assailant under more casual circumstances and asked about the handgun in his Malibu, he probably would have told you he was carrying it for protection. He would have told you it was his right, just check the law.
Victor Estefan’s killer could have given you the same line.
And God help you if you disagreed.
New NRA ad misses the mark
May 23, 1988
The National Rifle Association has kicked off a frantic counteroffen-sive in Florida with new radio commercials designed to scare every law-abiding citizen into buying a handgun.
Displaying its usual disregard for facts, the NRA asserts that strict handgun laws will punish only the innocent, because criminals don’t apply for gun permits.
Wrong. In Dade County, one out of 15 applicants for a new concealed-weapons license has a felony arrest record. Since the new laws took effect, violent drug dealers, home invasion robbers and mental defectives have gotten legal gun permitsdespite the NRA’s assurance that no such thing could happen.
Under fire from angry constituents, legislators are fumbling around with a sham responsea whopping three-day waiting period. This won’t accomplish anything, except to allow these wimps to slink home from Tallahassee and claim credit for a “tougher” gun law.
Meanwhile, it’s been another typical week for handguns in South Florida. A 10-year-old Richmond Heights boy, upset over a bad school performance report, killed himself with a .357 found under his parents’ bed. In Coral Springs, an investment counselor shot an ex-employee four times and then himself over a labor grievance.
The NRA ads imply that a pistol in the nightstand is all that stands between a free society and a criminal siege. Fear sells, and nobody sells it better than the NRA.
If you really want to feel safe and secure, consider the number of handguns that enter the criminal underworld every day. The NRA seldom confronts the issue of where these guns come fromthe guns used to shoot at cops and store clerks and cashiers.
Guess where they come from. A sample from the last three weeks:
A .45-caliber handgun was stolen from a truck parked outside the Sunshine Medical Center on Southwest 72nd Street.
A .357 magnum was stolen from a man who was attacked by three assailants in West Dade.
A .38-caliber revolver was stolen out of a Chevy Blazer parked in the 24700 block of Southwest 87th Avenue.
A .38-caliber Smith & Wesson was stolen from an apartment on the 8400 block of Southwest 107th Avenue.
A thief who stole a 1987 Ford Bronco on Southwest 63rd Street also got a .357, which had been left in the truck.
A 9mm handgun was stolen from the glove box of a Buick parked at Westchester Hospital.
A thief who stole a Ford pickup on Northwest 109th Street also got a .38-caliber pistol and .22-caliber handgun, both of which had been left in the truck.
A .38 was stolen from a parked car in the 1100 block of Northwest 128th Street.
A 12-gauge shotgun and a .357 Smith & Wesson were stolen from a home in the 16000 block of Northwest 45th Avenue.
A .38 Smith & Wesson was stolen from under a mattress inside a house trailer in the 6000 block of Southwest Eighth Street.
A .22-caliber semiautomatic Beretta was stolen from a diesel repair shop on Okeechobee Road.
A .44 magnum was stolen from an apartment in the 17200 block of Southwest 9Łth Avenue.
A .380 was stolen from a home in the 19300 block of Southwest 117th Court.
Another .380 was stolen in a house burglary on Hammond Drive, in Miami Springs.
A .357 was stolen by burglars who broke a sliding door on a house in the 10800 block of Southwest 168th Street.
The big score took place in North Broward, where burglars broke into a tackle shop and swiped a MAC-10, a MAC-11 and eight handguns.
And these are only some of the cases reported to police.
Most of these weapons were purchased with honest intentions, and now they’re in the hands of criminals. They will not likely be used for the lawful defense of life or property, but rather for crime.
For those who lost their handguns to crooks, the NRA’s solution is simple: Go out and buy more. Call it supply-side gun regulation.
Burglars, thugs and stickup men couldn’t be happier about it. Right now, the NRA is the best friend they’ve gotbesides our state Legislature.
Shop closing may trigger gun panic
March 1, 1989
Authorities braced for “a wave of consumer panic” today following the announcement that the Tamiami Gun Shop has closed its doors.
The owner insisted that the closing of the store, South Florida’s biggest retail firearms dealer, is only temporary. He said he’s planning to sell the place to new investors.
Meanwhile, police and civil defense officials prepared for widespread unrest in the face of a possible gun shortage. Mandatory rationing could be imposed.
“We anticipate panic buying, looting, and hoarding of weapons, particularly handguns,” said Sgt. Earl “Bucky” Fuqua of the Metro-Dade police. “We are urging people to stay calm because this is only a temporary situation. There’s still plenty of guns out there for everybody. Honest.”
Yet by dawn today long lines had begun to form at other South Florida gun shops. Anxious customers brought tents and sleeping bags, waiting all night for the stores to open.
Tensions ran high in some gun lines and several rights broke out, though no serious injuries were reported. “Since they didn’t have pistols, they had to use their fists and feet,” Fuqua said. “It was pathetic, I’m not kidding.”
To avoid a shortage, many gun dealers say they are voluntarily limiting the number of weapons purchased by a single customer. The emergency quota includes one Saturday Night Special, one imported semiautomatic handgun, one domestic shotgun and one unconverted MAC-10.
“Yeah, cutting back is a hardship,” admitted one gun dealer, “but at a time like this, we gotta think about what’s good for all society, not just what’s good for our pocketbooks.”
Industry analysts were hard-pressed to explain the sudden closing of Tamiami Gun Shop, a colorful family attraction in Miami. Thanks to Florida’s liberal new weapons laws, business at most firearms stores has been booming lately.
The number of handgun homicidesconsidered a prime economic indicatorshowed strong and steady gains last year in the tri-county area. Especially large increases were noted among 13-to 17-year-olds, a sign that handguns were breaking solidly into the lucrative youth market.
In addition, police reported that more handguns were swiped from homes and cars than ever before. This usually is good news for gun dealers, who are swamped with customers wanting to buy new weapons to replace those that were stolen.
Since repeat business is so important to gun shops, some analysts speculate that Tamiami might have simply done its job too wellselling so many guns to so many people that burglars haven’t been able to keep pace in stealing them.
Such conditions could conceivably lead to a saturated marketplace.
“Saturated? South Florida? No way,” said Sgt. Fuqua. “In fact, just the other day I stopped a guy for speeding over on Flagler Street. When I looked in the trunk of his carno gun! Checked the glove compartmentempty! Under the front seatnothing! Hey, you can look it up in the report if you don’t believe me.”
Other police agencies confirm similar isolated incidents where officers have encountered unarmed civiliansa dear signal that the handgun market has not yet reached its full potential.
Some observers say it’s possible that Tamiami didn’t change with the times. The store gained national attention for selling a .357 to a disgruntled stock investor (and felon) named Arthur Kane, who immediately used the gun to shoot his broker and kill another man.
But while Tamiami’s reputation as a handgun dealership was assured, other gun shops around the country were getting even bigger headlines by diversifying into more exotic weapons, such as AK-4/s. Pistols, it seemed, were becoming passe.
Still, most experts believe that a modernized Tamiami Gun Shop will reopen and be as popular as ever. “Hey, if they don’t sell another Glock, it won’t matter,” Sgt. Fuqua said. “In this town you can make a killing off bullets alone.”
Sad reality: Armed society means cops die
April 30, 1990
Every time another police officer is murdered, anguished voices rise to ask: When will it stop?
The answer is, it won’t.
We live in an armed society where people shoot each other every day for the most mundane and empty-headed reasons. Sometimes they shoot cops.
To us, the murder of any police officer seems senseless, but it’s not. Some creep with a pistol in his car decides he doesn’t want to get arrested, so he starts shooting. Makes perfect sense to him.
These are not clear-thinking, highly principled, law-abiding citizens. These are dirtbags. They’ve spent most of their sorry lives doing dumb crimes that got them in trouble, and then repeating their mistakes at every opportunity.
Maybe they come from broken homes. Maybe they’ve got a drug habit. Maybe they grew up in a bad neighborhood and never had a chance. Whatever the reasons, there are thousands of these losers on the streets of South Florida, and plenty of guns to go around.
Several weeks ago there was the funeral for Broward Sheriffs Deputy John Greeney III. This week it’s Metro-Dade Officer Joseph Martin. Inevitably there will be another, and another after that.
Few countries in the world bury so many slain police officers. Such crimes are rare in Great Britain, Japan, even Canada. The only place more dangerous than the United States is Colombia, where drug gangsters slaughter policemen by the carload.
The most telling thing about Officer Martin’s murder is how ordinary the suspects are.They’re not big-time bank robbers, federal fugitives, or ruthless cocaine assassins. They’re burglars and car thieves, 19 and 20 years old; common crooks whose rap sheets show no history of armed violence.
What happens in that frantic millisecond when panic, or rage, or pure cold-bloodedness takes control?
If we could peek into the mind of whoever pulled the trigger on Joseph Martin, we would probably be stunned by the simple, impulsive nature of his decision. There you are in a stolen automobile, late at night, pulled over by a squad car. And there’s the gun on the seat …
We are raising a generation of young criminals who shoot first and think later. They are fascinated with deadly weapons and casual in their killing. So far this year, the Dade State Attorney’s Office has handled 45 cases of murder or attempted murder in which the defendant was age 17, or younger.
Just this weekend, a police gang task force raided two homes in North Dade and seized seven guns, plus a silencer; two juveniles, an 18-year-old and a 19-year-old were arrested. What they intended to do with all these firearms is not known, but they probably weren’t planning to start a museum.
It’s common to blame the parents, blame the schools, blame society for letting these kids slip away. Some of them can be rehabilitated, some of them can’t. The main thing is, they’re out there in growing numbers.
Most criminals begin their careers as two-bit house burglars, and in South Florida that means you deal in guns. For sheer terror there’s nothing like glancing through a week’s worth of burglary reports to get an idea of the arsenal on the streetsAK-41s, AR-15s, UZIs, MAC-11s and every type of handgun imaginable, all stolen from the bedrooms, car trunks and glove compartments of regular citizens.
Some of these weapons will end up killing somebody, maybe even a cop.
This is the terrible irony: In trying to protect ourselves and our families, we’ve armed the very outlaws whom we fear. Some of them are crazy, some of them are mean and some are just plain stupid. Many are barely old enough to drive.
We should hardly be surprised when one of them snaps, for whatever reason, and takes aim at a badge. The only surprise is that it doesn’t happen more often.
Pass all the tough crime laws you want. Build bigger prisons. Heat up the electric chair.
It won’t stop the killing. We are too late for that.
In tourist haven, mayor sticks to guns
June 27, 1990
Another reason to plan your family vacation for somewhere else: Miami Beach Mayor Alex Daoud has armed himself with four semiautomatic handguns and a night sight.
The ostensible reason for Daoud’s private arsenal is “personal protection.” Presumably the night sight is necessary in case the mayor is attacked by bats.