Sunday, Sep 7, 2008
There are a couple things you should know about the TEC-DC 9 and the Hi-Point carbine rifle, facts that might help explain why Klebold and Harris wanted them.
The TEC-DC 9 is a spinoff of the TEC 9. The TEC 9 is more likely to be used in violent crimes than any other handgun. A study of crime statistics between 1991 and 1994 by James Alan Fox, dean of the College of Criminal Justice at Northeastern University, indicated that the more violent the crime, the greater the chance a TEC-9 is used.
Criminals like the TEC 9 because it's relatively cheap, small (about a foot long) and therefore easily concealed, and can carry 36-bullet clips. Its manufacturer, the Miami-based Navegar, has advertised the gun's "excellent resistance to fingerprints," and lauded the weapon as "high-spirited" and "as tough as your toughest customer."
The difference between the TEC 9 and the TEC-DC 9 is one of marginal construction and maximum obnoxiousness. The city of Washington banned the TEC 9 by name in 1991, so Navegar made a slight modification -- removing threads on its barrel where a silencer fit -- and re-released the gun as the TEC DC-9. It's said that the "DC" was thrown in as a middle finger aimed at Washington, D.C.
The TEC-DC 9's lethality proved no different from its forebear, of course. In July 1993, Gian Luigi Ferri snuck a TEC-DC 9 into a San Francisco law firm, using it to kill eight people, wound six others, and then shoot himself. One year later, gunman Benny Lee Lawson snuck a TEC 9 into D.C. police headquarters and used it to kill two FBI agents and a police detective.
The manufacture of the TEC 9 was banned in the 1994 assault weapons ban, but existing TEC 9s were grandfathered in. The manufacture of clips of greater than a 10-bullet capacity was also banned, but pre-existing clips of greater than 10 rounds were grandfathered in as well. The NRA pushed hard for these weapons and clips to be grandfathered in.
Klebold fired his TEC-DC 9 55 times. It killed four people and wounded two others.
The Hi-Point carbine rifle is a favorite of kids -- one of the top ten guns confiscated from children in Atlanta, Cleveland and Detroit, according to a study by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
It's light (just 5 and a half pounds), small (16 and a half inches long) and cheap (about $170). Unlike other rifles, it has a pistol grip so you can shoot from the hip rather than the shoulder.
Ads call it "the hottest gun since the SKS."
Both the TEC-DC 9 and the Hi-Point Carbine rifle are "much easier to use than bolt-action rifles, which you have to work to use," says Kristen Rand of the Violence Policy Center.
A bolt-action rifle killed JFK; Charles Whitman used one to mow down kids from the University of Texas tower. They're certainly lethal. But "every time you want to fire the gun you have to work the bolt and pull the trigger," Rand says. "Many semiautomatics have 32 rounds in the clip and they're much easier to reload."
Indeed. Klebold and Harris' rampage through the Columbine library, where they murdered 10 kids -- including Cassie Bernall and Isaiah Shoels -- lasted just 7 and a half minutes. The high-tech nature of their guns allowed them to work fast; according to an investigation by the Rocky Mountain News, the "terror was relatively short-lived -- roughly 16 minutes from the first gunshot outside the school about 11:20 a.m. to the last one in the library."
If you want to kill a lot of people in a short amount of time, the two higher-tech guns Klebold and Harris got are good buys. They're not hunting rifles. They're not the kind of guns real sportsmen use for target shooting.
These guns, according to Rand, are "military weapons. They're made for mowing people down."
Mowing down people like sophomore Lance Kirklin, who snuck out of Columbine High School with two friends that morning for a smoke.
A single shotgun blast certainly could have wounded or killed any of the three. As would have a hammer. Or a knife. Or a rock.
But only a gun with real firepower could mangle three young bodies from head to toe in a matter of just seconds -- killing one of them, injuring another, and piercing Lance Kirklin with bullets in his face, chest, groin, leg and foot.
The other guns played a major role too, of course. With the Savage Arms Model 67 pump shotgun, Harris killed four people and wounded seven.
But it's the more high-tech guns that wreaked the most havoc in the shortest amount of time. And those are the ones that held the cops at bay.
Sheriff's Deputy Neil Gardner was assigned to the school. He exchanged fire with the boys. Not long afterward, the dispatcher broadcast, "shots fired, large caliber."
It's pretty typical -- the lawmen are outgunned. Ask a cop. They can't do their jobs. It's why police agencies overwhelmingly supported common-sense gun control measures like the Brady Bill, or the assault weapon ban, measures that the NRA fought tooth and nail.
The NRA is correct in its assertion that Klebold and Harris broke gun laws. Sawing off the shotguns was illegal. Possessing the TEC-DC 9 was illegal. And then, of course, they used them to kill 12 kids and a teacher -- committing not just a crime, but a heinous sin.
The NRA, however, emphasizes prosecuting criminals after they've committed the crimes already. "But that type of logic has absolutely no application to the type of suicidal attack that happened at Columbine," says Bob Walker, president of Handgun Control Inc.
The NRA also likes to change the subject to the question of why the federal government doesn't prosecute felons who illegally attempt to buy guns. (The answer, according to the Justice Department, is that there has been increased cooperation among the federal government and states and localities, and that "the gun lobby's attack on federal law enforcement efforts are meant to take attention away from the real issue -- namely, reducing gun violence and stopping children and criminals from getting guns.")
The following were and are perfectly legal, thanks in no small part to the NRA:
The American people have never wanted to outlaw guns, or prohibit law-abiding American adults from owning a firearm. But the American people are a sensible lot, and they know no freedom is absolute. Freedom of speech is fundamental, but slander or incitement to riot is not. Freedom of the press is vital, but libel and kiddie porn are not.
No less obscene is the argument that any law that would make us all a little safer -- say, banning cop-killer bullets -- is the first step in a totalitarian government taking control of us all and turning our nation into a Socialist republic. Such an argument is just plain insane.
According to a recent Washington Post/ABC News poll, 63 percent of the American people favor stricter gun control laws. Ninety percent favor background checks on people who buy guns at gun shows. Seventy-nine percent want trigger locks on all stored guns. Seventy-seven percent want a nationwide ban on the sale of assault weapons. Seventy-five percent want all handgun owners to register their firearms with the government. Sixty-six percent want to ban gun sales by mail order.
Republican governors, too -- with the notable exception of George W. Bush -- are getting the picture. Colorado Gov. Bill Owens and Ohio Gov. Bob Taft were both endorsed by the NRA, and yet both have pushed for common sense gun control, like trigger locks. Republicans like Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt, Kansas Gov. Bill Graves, Massachusetts Gov. Paul Cellucci, New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson, and Illinois Gov. George Ryan, too, have looked for a middle ground.
Often this "middle ground" is just a refusal to allow the ridiculous -- like Montana Gov. Marc Racicot's veto of a bill that would have allowed citizens carrying loaded, concealed weapons into bars and saloons. Or Connecticut Gov. John Rowland's support for a law allowing law enforcement to remove guns belonging to individuals believed to be a threat to the community.
Some of this, of course, is political pragmatism more than a change of heart.
"You can't be pro-gun and run statewide in any state that has a significant urban population," Rand says. She looks at McCain and Bush as both staking out a moderate position on the issue -- "they're reading the polls," she says. Neither candidate showed up for the Gun Owners of New Hampshire annual dinner on Dec. 5, for instance. "In past years, all candidates campaigning for the Republican nomination -- and a few campaigning for the Democratic one -- wouldn't dream of missing this important night," wrote the conservative Manchester Union Leader.
Neither McCain nor Bush is eager to discuss the issue, however; that might showcase their moderation as they compete for conservative primary votes. And the middle-ground approach of the Republican governors has yet to find a home in the GOP House or Senate.
"We'll see whether [Columbine] has a lasting impact on policy when we see what happens in the next elections," says Rand. "Despite all of these shootings, you have the status quo in this Congress. Until we change the people making the laws, we're unlikely to change the gun laws."
Rand acknowledges that the Columbine massacre wasn't only an issue of gun control. "You can't ignore the fact that something has gone horribly wrong with kids who would be capable of such acts," she says.
"But the reality of it is, you have disturbed kids everywhere," Rand continues. "And you can never hope to predict which one's going to go off. The issue of dealing with disturbed kids is very long-term -- and it obviously can't be ignored. But it's much easier to get guns out of kids' hands than images out of their minds. The bottom line is if we don't start restricting access to guns in America, Columbine and office shootings are our future. And we should just get used to it."
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