People Killing People

A man who calls himself Homer telephones occasionally to express his displeasure with the various social programs that blow like summer breezes through L.A. He begins his conversations without preamble. “You read about those crapheads wanting to spend millions to take care of abused kids?” he demands when I answer the phone with a pleasant hello. “Well, Homer,” I say sweetly, “nice to hear from you again. How are things in Hell?”

I stay sweet because it is a policy at the L.A. Times to remain courteous even though there is some nut on the other end of the line calling me names that would make a street cop blush. Homer from Hell has never indicated a tendency toward violence, and therefore I tolerate his periodic calls as a way of keeping in touch with those who, though not blessed with superior insight, are still able to tie their own shoes and remember their way home.

Homer’s most recent call came yesterday. He disagrees with the effort by City Councilman Nate Holden to get semiautomatic weapons off the streets by buying them for $300 each from his campaign fund and turning them over to the LAPD for destruction.

Homer feels that his constitutional rights are being violated even though no one is forcing anyone to turn in their shootin’ irons. Holden is simply offering a method by which someone can pick up a few bucks by selling something, and if they make a little profit, so what? That’s the American Way.

“What they ought to be doing is issuing AK-47s to our citizens,” Homer said, “not taking them away. There’s a war going on in this city, and it sure as hell isn’t the bad guys who are turning in their weapons. When the riots come, we’ll wish we had them!”

He went on to say in terms not printable in a newspaper famous for nice manners that we all ought to offer to buy AK-47s back from Holden for more than he paid for them, an enticement he surely would not be able to resist since the profit would fatten his campaign fund.

“He’s already gotten the news space out of it,” Homer said, “and now if he’s going to run for mayor, he can use the do-re-me. You can call this People Helping People.”

When I asked Holden’s press secretary, Paulette Jones, if the whole thing was just a publicity stunt, she bristled and said that was nonsense.

I didn’t expect her to say, “Yes, Al, you’re right. Isn’t it a wonderful gimmick?” because press secretaries just don’t do that. But on the other hand I hadn’t expected her to elevate a somewhat prosaic notion to the level of genius, which was her exact approach.

“It’s a genius program,” Paulette explained, “because it gets the message across and at the same time gets guns off the street. Nate had always been a gun control advocate. This just keeps the topic alive and has nothing to do with any campaign. We’ve had 44 guns turned in already.”

We were talking on the telephone so I don’t know if she was reading from a prepared text or not, but if she was, it must have contained stage directions to keep it light because she got less prickly as the conversation continued. At the end I felt she was pleased I had even expressed an interest in her boss’s genius and might say “have a nice day” at any moment.

Genius was not a factor when I discussed guns with a cop I have known for many years and whose name I would use only at the risk of severe consequences for both of us. He, to begin with, would be buying a lot of departmental grief for any opinion he expressed, and I would be subject to his wrath, which would be even worse. I am small and afraid and wish to avoid anyone’s wrath, especially a cop’s, so I’ll call him Stokes.

Stokes is against private ownership of any rifle not required for killing deer, unless the deer are organized and armed and attacking in vast numbers. “You need an assault weapon like you need four wives,” was the way Stokes put it. “People say they’re going to use them for burglars, but those damned rifles are so powerful they’d go through a burglar, the house, a tree and the guy next door. There is no more reason for owning an AK-47 than there is in owning an F-16.”

Stokes believes Holden’s campaign will do about as much good as asking gang members to turn in their Uzis for slingshots. “The only way to cut down on private ownership,” he said, “is to make selling the damned things illegal.” But with the NRA as powerful as it is, even that seems unlikely. Charlton Heston will be able to convince guys like Homer from Hell that the deer are already arming and God help us if they ever start marching on the cities.