Young Gunslingers Leave a Trail of Tears

The day the sad story from Arkansas broke, I found myself thinking of Brenda Spencer of “I don’t like Mondays” fame.

That’s what 16-year-old Brenda memorably told the enterprising reporter who reached her by phone that morning in 1979 as police closed in on her San Diego home.

She had opened fire on an elementary school across the street, killing the principal and a janitor and wounding eight students and a police officer--because, she said, she didn’t like Mondays.

My thoughts drifted to some other young gunslingers. The gangbangers who do drive-bys tend to blur together. I also thought about the Telfair Kid, the 7-year-old boy who once brought a handgun to Telfair Avenue Elementary School in Pacoima. (Strange, but the Plummer Kid didn’t come to mind.) So I was thinking about children and guns as I reached into my mail slot and removed a glossy folder promoting a new book. The cover features a picture of a hand gripping a revolver, the barrel pointed outward, at me.

“More Guns, Less Crime” is the book’s upbeat title.

With apologies to grammarians, I think I have a better idea for a book: “More Guns, Less Kids”.

John R. Lott Jr., the book’s author, is a University of Chicago scholar who claims his analysis of statistics shows a strong link between America’s falling crime rate and the liberalization of concealed weapons laws.

Lott, frankly, has made me a little gunshy about the great American gun debate lately, but not because I find his arguments compelling. The first time I wrote about his dubious claims, you see, a misunderstanding led to an error and a retraction. Ugh. Well, I was already getting weary of those contentious 2nd Amendment debates anyway; those National Rifle Assn. folks are so stubborn.

But now comes a new national standard for shock and horror: a cold-blooded ambush allegedly carried out by a pair of pint-sized commandos.

The usual adult psychopaths come and go. For sheer misery, one must go back to Oklahoma City. Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols had a much greater body count, but looking back, it seems inevitable that wacko anti-government militia movement would lead to such terror.

But maybe in time it will also seem inevitable that late 20th century America would produce the likes of 13-year-old Mitchell Johnson and 11-year-old Andrew Golden, perhaps the latest addition to our pantheon of horrors--not just as perpetrators but, because of their youth, as victims themselves.

So how did this happen? Who is to blame? The parents? The guns? The gun nuts? How about Hollywood? TV and movie violence? Video game shoot-’em-ups? Gangsta rap? All of the above?

Whatever, the Jonesboro boys would make a fine chapter for “More Guns, Less Kids,” a book that would describe how modern American gun culture has robbed so many children of their childhoods.

The dead are only part of the story. Thousands are killed by gunfire each year in the United States--a rate of 16 per day, age 19 and under, according to a 1996 report from the National Center for Health Statistics. Emergency rooms treat four children for gunshot wounds for every one killed by gunfire. In 1992, 3,362 children and teenagers were slain with guns, while 1,426 committed suicide and 501 died in accidental shootings.

Statistics seem cold. Here are some names that might ring a bell:

--Chris Mitchell, 14. The Sylmar High student was accidentally shot dead in March 1995 by a 16-year-old friend playing with a gun apparently thought to be unloaded.

--Fred Gajeta, 17. The Antelope Valley youth was similarly killed in November 1995 after a friend jokingly pointed a rifle at him.

--Jorge Licea, just 10 years old. In April 1994, Jorge was seen sobbing outside 49th Street Elementary before he put his father’s handgun to his head and pulled the trigger.

To paraphrase John Donne, no child is an island. Gunfire not only robbed these young people of their lives, but it robbed parents of children, siblings of siblings, friends of friends, classmates of classmates. The bell tolls for thee.

Beyond the dead and wounded, there are children who live with fears that my generation knew only slightly. And the guns, of course, even rob the foolish young gunslingers as well. Switchblades were traded in long ago for weapons that kill at a distance. The teenage arms race has helped put thousands behind bars and has kicked thousands from school.

Yes, the gun culture in rural lands where hunting is common is different from the gun culture of the cities. But it’s an All-American gun culture, and Jonesboro shows how it all comes together.

Some classmates say Mitch Johnson--this 13-year-old white boy in Arkansas--wore red to signal his allegiance to the Bloods. Others said he sometimes professed loyalty to the Crips.

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The Children’s Firearm Protection Act, California law since 1992, seemed so sensible and prudent that it had support by both Handgun Control Inc. and the NRA. The idea was to make adults accountable for the safe storage of guns around children.

When the Telfair Kid made headlines three springs ago, his parents were spared prosecution because the 9-millimeter handgun he took to school was not loaded.

But I learned something interesting about the enforcement of gun laws. School officials told me then that hundreds of students had been expelled under the district’s “zero tolerance” policy regarding weapons on campus. Many of the guns were loaded. It seems safe to assume that some students brought guns from home. But when I asked the city attorney’s office how many parents were charged with improper storage, the answer was a big, fat zero.

The Plummer Kid would change that--after nearly killing a playmate.

She was the 9-year-old student at Plummer Elementary in Panorama City who showed a 7-year-old boy a .40-caliber Glock semiautomatic pistol she’d brought from home. The girl removed the loaded magazine but a round remaining in the firing chamber discharged when she pulled the trigger, the bullet ripping the sleeve of the boy’s jacket. She dropped the gun and ran away crying, but school officials later recovered the Glock and the magazine loaded with 10 rounds.

The girl’s mother was convicted under the unsafe storage law and sentenced to 35 days on a Caltrans work crew, doing graffiti removal.

The city attorney’s office, on Wednesday, could not identify any other instances in which a parent was prosecuted. It seems strange that more parents haven’t been charged. “They should do community service and go to places like PTA meetings to talk about gun safety,” says Luis Tolley of Handgun Control Inc.

Wouldn’t it be nice if Charlton Heston persuaded the NRA to at least back stricter gun storage laws?

Don’t count on it, Tolley says. Fifteen states now have variations of the law, but lately, the NRA has done an about-face, opposing even this.

Meanwhile, authorities in Wisconsin this week arrested a 14-year-old boy who allegedly sprayed his school with gunfire. He didn’t like his report card.

Scott Harris’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Readers may write to him at The Times’ Valley Edition, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth 91311, or via e-mail at scott.harris@latimes.com Please include a phone number.