Here it comes in NY
This appeared in yesterday's New York Daily News. The writer is notoriously anti-gun.
Then, today's Daily News ran the following editorial . . .
This appeared in yesterday's New York Daily News. The writer is notoriously anti-gun.
Binghamton gunman's store of choice doing business as usual
By Michael Daly
BINGHAMTON, N.Y. - On the day of the first funeral for the massacred innocents,
the store where the gunman had bought both murder weapons opened right on time.
As the first customers strode into Gander Mountain sporting goods at 10 a.m., a
voice over the public address system reminded them to check out the special
sales.
"Rifles and handguns," the voice said.
The handgun department that Jiverly Wong had come to know so well from his many
visits is on the far side from the front entrance to the cavernous store. The
people there had also come to know Wong.
"Sometimes when he was there purchasing guns, they thought he was exhibiting
some strange behavior," Binghamton Police Chief Joe Zikuski reported Sunday.
Wong is said to have become agitated when the sales staff had difficulty
understanding his English. He sometimes became so riled that a clerk would pass
him off to a colleague who might have better luck.
But nobody declined to sell him even the most deadly automatic pistols. He
repeatedly purchased a weapon only to come back days later and announce he
really wanted another.
On March 17, Wong settled on a new .45-caliber automatic. He had already
acquired a 9-mm. automatic. He had both weapons when he arrived at the American
Civic Association on Friday morning and killed 13. "The law is the law, and if
you fit the criteria, you get a pistol permit," Zikuski said in the aftermath,
as if the law had not just been proven to be statutory madness.
Sunday morning, the glass cases at Gander Mountain still offered the same wide
variety of automatic pistols from which Wong had difficulty choosing. I asked
the woman behind the counter how a gun buyer is supposed to make a selection.
"It depends on what you're looking to do," she said.
The two weapons Wong selected did exactly what he was looking to do. He somehow
scraped together more than $1,000 for the guns, but even somebody out of work
could afford the special "value pack" of a hundred 9-mm. bullets for $15.99.
The resulting pools and spatters of blood were proving to be a big job yesterday
morning for another local business, Disaster Clean-Up. A woman in blue coveralls
was crouched just inside the double glass front doors of the Civic Association,
scrubbing away gore from where two receptionists had been shot.
She then set to work on the spattered blackboard from the classroom where 12
innocents were murdered. She proceeded to the base of the floor-to-ceiling
windows at the front. She paused to swipe two bullet holes in the plate glass.
A co-worker took a string mop to the bigger pools of blood as a cop outside bent
over to add a single white rose to the bouquets that people had begun leaving in
front of the building.
A woman who knew three of the victims stepped up with some red flowers and
scattered pinches of what she called holy sand as a Chinese blessing. Nine
people mourning the death of 39-year-old Lan Ho from Vietnam burned incense as
they offered a Buddhist prayer and chant. Outside the nearby Islamic
Organization of the Southern Tier, burgundy body bags containing two of the
victims were being removed from a pair of gray hearses. White plastic tags
attached to each of the bags fluttered in the wind, one bearing the name of
26-year-old Parveen Ali of Pakistan, the other of 57-year-old Layla Khalil from
Iraq. Khalil had survived car bombings in her native land.
"We came here, we hope to get better life, a place out of danger, everything
good," said her 17-year-old son, Mustafa.
After a brief funeral prayer ending with the wish that Allah would take them
into paradise, the two were driven off for burial. Some of the mourners later
attended a memorial gathering for those of all faiths at a local middle school.
The diversity of those who attended and their unity in grief marked the breadth
and depth of our country's greatness - despite the gun madness. Any victims who
were not already Americans should be granted citizenship posthumously.
Meanwhile, Gander Mountain shut for the day at 6 p.m., but not because that was
the hour of the memorial. That was simply the regular Sunday closing time.
The store and its handgun department open at 10 a.m. Monday for business as
usual.
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Then, today's Daily News ran the following editorial . . .
Binghamton carnage cries out for tighter state gun laws
After the massacre at Columbine, laws were tightened to better regulate weapons
sales at gun shows.
After the massacre at Virginia Tech, laws were tightened to create a system for
checking mental health records of gun buyers.
After the massacre by the Washington sniper, laws were tightened to clamp down
on lost and stolen guns.
Now, there has been a fresh massacre - this one methodically taking 13 lives in
upstate Binghamton.
In New York, where the gun laws are said to be among the toughest in the nation.
In New York, where the gun laws need to be tightened to enact uniform, strict
statewide standards on pistol licensing.
Gov. Paterson and the Legislature must pattern state rules after those applied
here in the city. Key among the provisions must be an end to the insane practice
of issuing permits that have no expiration date.
There are, broadly speaking, two types of pistol licenses - one that authorizes
someone to carry a concealed weapon for protection, another that enables someone
to keep a weapon at home for defense or to bring, unloaded, to specified
locations, such as a target range.
Applicants for so-called carry permits must demonstrate a need: For example, the
regular transportation of large sums of money. So-called premises permits are
easier to obtain. They generally require only a background check.
Demented Binghamton shooter Jiverly Wong had a duly issued Broome County
premises permit that entitled him - despite behaving erratically at the store -
to buy the two Berettas used in the shooting spree.
But, lacking an expiration date, the permit was more than a dozen years old.
Only New York City and suburban counties put a time limit on premises licenses.
In the city, it's three years. In the suburbs, it's five.
Much had changed for Wong since he got his permit in 1996. He was fired at least
once from a job, was arrested for bad checks and was reported to police by an
informant as plotting a robbery and using crack.
The NYPD permit form requires applicants to disclose, among other things, job
dismissals, narcotics use and arrests. The department runs its own independent
checks on such things - and does so every time permit holders apply for renewal.
Had such a three-year system been in place in Broome County, Wong might have
come to the attention of police as too risky for gun ownership. No one will ever
know, because in Broome and 53 other New York counties, premises permits are
good forever. The authorities never get another look at a gun owner's rap sheet
or history of domestic violence. Until it's too late. That must change.
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