April 27, 2000
D.C.'s strict laws on guns not enough to halt shooting
By John Drake and Arlo Wagner
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
The National Zoo shootings have sparked calls for tighter gun control,
but the District of Columbia's gun laws � already considered the
nation's strictest � apparently failed to keep a 9 mm pistol out of the
16-year-old suspect's hands.
And gun rights advocates said yesterday the new proposals by Mayor
Anthony A. Williams and Vice President Al Gore, among others, aren't
likely to stop young criminals from obtaining firearms illegally. "There
was no shortage of laws that were violated here," said Jim Manown,
spokesman for the National Rifle Association. "Whatever compelled him to
allegedly possess and use this gun would not have been changed by
another gun law."
The youth charged in the crime � Antoine Bernard Jones � already broke
several laws simply by possessing the gun as a juvenile in the District,
which banned handgun ownership and possession in 1975.
The youth was either given the gun, borrowed it, stole it or bought it
on the black market, given the gun laws in the area, which forbid a
16-year-old from buying a gun over the counter.
"Because the District has a virtual gun ban, it should be a utopian safe
haven if the gun control theory has any merit," said John Velleco,
spokesman for Gun Owners of America.
Metropolitan Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey says police will talk with
Mr. Jones today to find the gun they say he used and reportedly was seen
throwing away.
The young suspect reportedly is the son of James Antonio Jones, a former
enforcer for a city drug gang serving a 29-year prison sentence.
Police officials said Mr. Jones "was known to police," meaning that he
had a prior criminal record, including involvement in armed robberies
when he was 13 and an expulsion from a D.C. public school.
Although juvenile crime has declined, youth violence has reached a
crisis stage, which Mr. Williams blamed on the easy access children
have to guns.
Mr. Williams called for a national ban on handguns yesterday, but he
also acknowledged that youth crime "is not exclusively a gun problem."
Mr. Jones reacted to confrontations at the zoo out of anger, rather than
as part of a gang or vengeance, said Executive Assistant Police Chief
Terrance W. Gainer.
"For whatever reason in this 21st century, kids aren't dealing with
anger the way they should," he said.
Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat, said that weapons flood into
Washington, which has the nation's tightest gun laws, from nearby states
with weaker laws.
Chief Gainer said 55 percent of guns seized by D.C. police were
purchased in Maryland and Virginia Mr. Velleco, of Gun Owners of
America, criticized the argument that the District's gun problem starts
in Virginia.
"If guns are so readily accessible there, Virginia should have a higher
crime rate and gun crime rate,"
Mr. Velleco said. "Arlington, right across the river, has a murder rate
that's 50 times lower than the District."
And on Tuesday, Virginia Gov. James S. Gilmore III fielded questions on
the shootings. He went on the air shortly after the mayor told ABC's
"Good Morning America" that controlling firearms in Washington required
a regional approach. The calls for tighter gun-control laws rankled Mr.
Gilmore when Virginia was named as a primary source of weapons in the
District. "I think that illustrates the frailty of [Mrs. Norton's]
gun-control idea. That's not the direction to go," said Mr. Gilmore, a
Republican. "We still live in a free country, and as a result we're not
watching people all the time. . . . The idea that somehow gun control is
going to be the answer . . . demonstrates foursquare that that is not
the answer."
At several fund-raisers this week, Mr. Gore and President Clinton also
have cited the zoo shooting for the need for more gun laws.
They "have shown they don't care so much that children are being killed,
they care more how they're being killed," Mr. Velleco said.
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