The End Of Illegal Guns

In this week’s Citypaper, Brian Hickey comes up with a novel approach to end the tide of gun violence in the city: Set up gun checkpoints just like we do with DUIs and frisk everyone in the car to find illegal weapons.

Whoo! That’s quite a bold plan, but he plays the “it’s really no different” card, and I suppose it’s not really all that different than DUI stops. But the idea of being stopped at a checkpoint and frisked because I happened to be driving around an area where they were looking for a few illegal guns kind of makes me [insert your favorite 1984-esque reference here].

Hickey claims that the stops wouldn’t be discriminatory, since they’d be stopping everyone. (In a program in NYC, officers were stopping and frisking — wait for it — a disproportionate number of blacks and Latinos.) I tend to think it discriminates against people who own cars, leaving those who walk, run, bicycle or Segway around with illegal guns safe, but that’s not really the issue here.

Now, before you say, “This is the silliest thing I’ve heard since the 76ers offered free tickets if you gave them their illegal guns,” let me tell you I’ve found out a way to make this novel approach even better. You may remember that a last week Hickey wrote that the then-unknown suspect in the murder of Police Officer Gary Skerski “warrants a shoot-first, don’t-even-bother-with-questions-later response.”

I’m sure you’re seeing where I’m going here: We should set up traffic stops, and if the guy has yellow eyes or looks like he might’ve killed someone, you simply open fire into his chest (with a legal gun, of course!).

Shoot first, don’t even bother with questions later! Problem solved. No long trial, no messy appeals and we can all get back to debating the cuteness of puppies.

Lethal Rejection [CP]
Stops, or They’ll Shoot [CP]
Hoagie Dip 3/1 [PW]
May 19: A Good Day For Snitchin’