The united American : a magazine of good citizenchip., February 01, 1924, Page 6, Image 6

FEBRUARY, 1924
THE UNITED AMERICAN
6
state of paralysis now existing, due to the shattering
of vital nerve centers.
In Oregon several men suspected of bootlegging
have been shot down during the last few months by
prohibition officers. Some have died, others may
recover.
There is an element of public opinion that tends to
exonerate an officer for shooting a man who refuses
to stop when the officer gives his command to halt,
whatever the nature of the provocation. Such rea­
soning is frontier’s reasoning. What might have been
practiced and condoned in the name of law enforce­
ment in the frontier town of “Whiskey Gully,” hun­
dreds of miles from the nearest base of organized
civilization, should not be condoned in the well regu­
lated city that has taken the place of the frontier
village.
The wanton shooting and killing, by a state prohi­
bition agent, of a young man in possession of liquor
at Gold Beach, the other day, and the shooting and
serious wounding of a man at Vernonia a few days
ago, where a prohibition enforcement officer pulled
the trigger and sent a bullet on a death-dealing mis­
sion, because a man suspected of having liquor in his
possession tried to sneak away from the officer, are
conclusive evidence that some of our citizens are
either too careless in the matter of selecting and au­
thorizing officers or are themselves so irresponsible
that they are not fit to hold public office.
The civilian officer who is in the habit of executing
his orders at the point of a gun who, so to speak, has
his finger on the trigger to back up his every order,
should be kicked off the job whether he is a city po­
liceman, a deputy sheriff, a state or a federal officer.
His kind breeds defiance among the civilian populace.
His renegade tactics are a blot on the American plan
of government.
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The common possession of a gun leads to the con­
clusion on the part of innocent, yet more or less irre­
sponsible people that the gun affords a specific amount
of protection to the home against the burglar. Yet,
burglaries of homes where pistols are kept, in bed­
rooms and living rooms, while the people are at home,
are as easily accomplished as the burglarizing of
homes where the people have no firearms. The forti­
fied homes usually furnish the burglars with a ready
supply of better firearms and the dwellers may rest
assured that the thieves will leave no pistol behind
when they find one.
So long as the people are permitted to buy and
possess firearms, the crimes committed by irrespon­
sible people, not to speak of the heavy toll of life
resulting from accidental shooting, are crimes for
which the nation as a whole must share respon­
sibility.
Those who think that we have too many laws
restraining personal liberty might add another charge
against society on this account, but they would be­
come more secure in their persons against the armed
fools, if the people caused state and national laws to
be enacted forbidding unchecked manufacture and
sale of firearms in America.
Disarm thé civilians in all walks of life in America.
Make it a crime to possess a revolver without a per­
mit with teeth in it, holding the state responsible for
the acts of the party permitted to have a gun. If the
one holding the permit in turn would be held criminal­
ly responsible for the weapon, few would care to ven­
ture the risk. Having done this it should be time to
disarm the civilian police. If a club was a sufficient
weapon, at least before the war, for a policeman in a
king’s or emperor’s country, it should be sufficient in
the country of free men.
The American courts are swamped with murder
trials, cases growing out of jealousy and small qua-
rels among friends and acquaintances, people who
never learned to control their tempers, or restrain
their emotions and show proper and emphatic resent­
ment without going into a rage and who find satis­
faction in nothing less than a fusillade of shots to cool
their ardor.
Out of such incidents, culminating in murder, has
come the common plea before our courts, of “tempo­
rary insanity!”
Ordinarily fine, law-abiding people suddenly stand
accused of a capital crime, committed in a sudden fit
of anger when the undisciplined emotions were set
free. The loaded gun in the dresser or on the shelf —
nothing else would do — quick as lightning—a flash
— a crumbling form — a catastrophe; the climax of
the quarrel (because the gun was there) — a scream:
“What have I done ?” — the horrible realization of it
all — reason and the senses returning — a remorseful
human form (frantically pleading, calling for forgive­
ness and the return of the wasted life) lying bent
over a prostrate body.
The curtain falls upon the first scene! The next
scene is in the court, with a judge and an array of
legal talents: prosecution and defense. Children are
about the defendant. They can not understand. The
home is empty.. The little tots are cared for by
strangers. The law exacts its toll. Or perhaps a jury,
moved by the temporary insanity plea, saves the ac­
cused from the atonement prescribed in capital pun­
ishment. But the path nevertheless leads to forfeited
liberty, in an institution for the insane, and for the
one who committed the rash deed and for his or her
dependents, the cord of happiness has been broken —
all on account of the possible possession of and ready
access to a GUN!
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Our advice to the naturalized citizen who wants to i
conduct himself with the dignity befitting an Ameri­
can, may be summarized in the following simple code
of ethics:
Never carry a revolver, and, better still, never have
one around the house. The gun will sometime or
other be the means of involving you in trouble. Its
possession is a negligible means of protection in the
American city or town—better be without it.
Violate no laws.
Resist no officer of the law.
Be careful about properly shutting and locking win­
dows and doors of your home, at night and in your
absence.
Leave no valuables or money at any time in a care-