DISARMAMENT-US: More Killings Renews Debate on US Gun Laws

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

NEW YORK, Jul 30 1999 (IPS) - “I hope this doesn’t ruin your trading day,” were the last words spoken Thursday by a disturbed investor before he opened fire and killed nine people in two brockerage houses in Atlanta.

The bullets from handguns fired by former chemist Mark Barton, 44, wounded 12 other persons and sparked yet another round of debate on gunlaws in the United States.

Earlier in the week, Barton had killed his wife and two children by hitting them on the head with a hammer, police said. His killing spree ended when he committed suicide.

It followed by three months another mass killing when two students at Colorado’s Columbine High School killed 12 of their classmates and a teacher before turning their guns on themselves.

“These are unspeakable tragedies,” Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell said after the latest killings – but he could just as easily have been referring to the recent wave of mass killings, including the Columbine tragedy.

In the aftermath of the Apr. 20 Columbine massacre, politicians tried to assuage a horrified public by promising tighter restrictions on handguns and other steps to prevent future bloodbaths. But by the time of Barton’s rampage, those efforts had already begun to founder.

President Bill Clinton responded to the Columbine killings by asking Congress to raise the legal age for handgun possession to 21, impose background checks on anyone buying guns at rural “gun shows,” and penalise parents whose children commit murders with guns.

Polls conducted in Columbine’s wake had showed that some two- thirds of the US public favoured such measures.

Yet the National Rifle Association (NRA), one of the most powerful US lobbies, easily withstood the tide of adverse publicity following Columbine and tts President, Hollywood star Charlton Heston, declared it was vital that Americans retained their right to bear arms.

He labelled the latest killings in Atlanta as the work of a “maladjusted adult.”

NRA-friendly legislators watered down legislation on sales at gun shows, with help from the Republican majority in Congress. The weakened bill was in turn defeated outright – mostly by legislators from Clinton’s Democratic Party – in a vote last month.

By contrast, the legacy of the Columbine massacre seemed to be a new “culture war” aimed at the violent videogames and nihilistic music enjoyed by the two teenaged killers, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold.

The “culture wars” conservatives have since tried to ban exceptionally violent videogames, like ‘Doom,’ and to call for greater film censorship. Their argumwents were strengthened by last weekend’s ‘Woodstock 99’ concert in Rome, New York, where at least five women alleged they were raped during a violence-wracked rock festival.

The Atlanta shootings, however, seem to have little to do with any such culture war.

Barton, who became a “day trader” – involved in daily buying and selling of stock shares – was described by his colleagues as friendly and humorous

Some sections of the media speculated that Barton’s armed attack with 9mm and .45-calibre handguns resulted from the tension involved in market dealings; but his past provided evidence that he was unstable even before stocks entered their high-pressure “bull market” phase.

Before shooting his fellow stockbrokers, Barton bludgeoned his wife and his two children to death in their suburban home on Tuesday and Wednesday.

This event led police to wonder if he was responsible – as some had suspected – for the bludgeoning deaths of his first wife and mother-in-law in 1993. If so, Barton’s rampage can hardly be explained as a freak occurrence but rather as part of a pattern of killings.

In turn, it could help steer legislators back to the question left unanswered since Columbine: How do such dangerously unstable people acquire high-powered weapons?

The United States long has been known for some of the most liberal gun laws in the industrialised world. Yet public revulsion following Columbine has at least prompted politicians to take some steps to restrict gun sales and possession.

In California, the legislature has moved to prohibit distinct types of guns – a change welcomed by the gun-control lobby, which has been dismayed that many state laws only restrict makes or models of guns, while allowing for similar types of guns to be sold.

In Colorado, legislators affected by the Columbine tragedy easily defeated several measures designed to loosen the state’s gun laws.

Some Democratic legislators in Congress meanwhile proposed a “national waiting period” for handguns, so that gun buyers would not take advantage of states which have only cursory checks of potential buyers before allowing handgun sales.

According to NRA data, Georgia – the state where Barton’s killing spree took place – is one of several states which does not require a permit for people wanting to buy or own handguns. However, Georgia does require a permit for anyone wanting to carry a concealed weapon.

The fact that a multiple murderer like Mark Barton didn’t even need to obtain a permit for his gun appeared certain to provoke a new battle in the federal and state legislatures over the need for tighter gun laws.

What remained to be seen was whether a new campaign would have any greater momentum that the post-Columbine outrage that already already had begun to fade.