Page 30 THE VILLADOM TIMES I • August 6, 2014 People kill & so do guns Ever wonder whether what you read in the newspapers or electronic news sources is true? I do. People often tell me, “I don’t always agree with your opinions, but I always know we were at the same meeting.” These days, that state- ment is something of an endorsement. One of America’s favorite arguments today is whether guns kill people or people kill people. The fact is that people who should never be trusted with a gun use guns to kill people they might or might not kill by other methods. When I was a young man, I sometimes worked the Sat- urday night shift for a daily newspaper that covered all of Bergen County and parts of Rockland, Passaic, and Hudson counties. Cheap handguns used to be called Saturday Night Specials. I got to follow their tracks and I can tell you that the edited versions of most homicides or attempted homi- cides bore little relationship to what actually happened. Shooting Number 1: I followed up in person a report of a guy being shot and taken to the hospital. I met some young guys standing around at the scene and discussed the details. These guys were “trade” -- guys who thought of themselves as straight, but sometimes worked gay people for money. The gay people cruised by in cars flirting with them and trying to pick them up. This is part of a regular subculture. In this case, words were exchanged and one of the gay guys who was cruising for “trade” shot one of the “trade” guys who sassed him. Family newspapers do not usually discuss these antics, but they figure in a large pro- portion of street crimes involving guns. Shooting Number 2: In a working man’s bar in a some- what better neighborhood, a gay guy came on to a straight guy, and the straight guy told him to get lost in no uncertain terms. When the straight guy walked out of the bar, the gay guy was hiding outside in ambush and blasted the straight guy with a shotgun fired from inside a truck’s cab. Shooting Number 3: In a somewhat diffuse bar in an eminently respectable town, two straight guys got into an argument over a woman neither of them knew very well. She made her choice. The loser stomped off, perhaps to some quiet ridicule. When the ostensible winner came out of the bar, the loser shot him with a spear gun of the type used for fishing. Shootings 3, 4, and 5: One winter night in a semi-urban, semi-suburban town, two plainclothes detectives caught three burglars during a break-and-entry. One of the bur- glars shot one of the detectives in the chest. The bullet pen- etrated the detective’s leather jacket and the thick sweater underneath, but only the tip of the slug entered his thorax. He pulled the bullet out with his fingers. The other detec- tive fired his gun at the burglar and shot him in the body, but not fatally. The wounded burglar was rushed to Bergen Pines where, after medical treatment, he was left to recover from a fairly serious gunshot wound in the detention ward. In the dead of night, the wounded burglar woke up, slipped up on a guard who was asleep, pointlessly murdered him with his own service revolver, and got out of the building carrying the revolver, but collapsed a short distance away. Both detectives were heard to say they wished they had killed him at the scene of the burglary. Shooting Number 6: A physician barricaded himself in his house, held his terrified estranged wife at gunpoint, and then let her escape. It was my last night on the job. I sat out- side my car just outside the police cordon until I head the single fatal shot. The physician had killed himself. Every one of these deaths or serious injuries could have been prevented if guns did not exist -- unless, of course, the perpetrators used knives or baseball bats, as violent crimi- nals do in countries where guns are hard to get. Every phy- sician knows how to take life painlessly. People who are not doctors or police also kill themselves with guns -- but some of them also kill themselves, and others, with deliberate bad driving, which places innocent motorists and pedestri- ans at risk. Every other shooting I covered could also have been prevented if the instigators were not predisposed to violent action and what might, in a more innocent era, be called anti-social behavior. In the mass shootings such as those in Columbine, Vir- ginia Tech, the Sikh temple, and the school in Connecticut, one sane person with a handgun and a steady hand could have saved most of the victims if he had taken out the killer or killers. We honor soldiers who do that, without much regard to the merit of the overseas cause. What gives mani- acs the right to murder unarmed Americans until they get their psychiatric hearing and their day in court? How many innocent lives would have been saved if there had been sky marshals on the aircraft used for the Sept. 11 attack -- or perhaps a few off-duty police or service personnel with legally concealed weapons? The aircraft, in fact, might have gone down, but they would never have reached the World Trade Center or the Pentagon. One group of utterly heroic passengers probably saved the White House when they tackled the terrorists with martial arts and fisticuffs. If two or three of them had been carrying concealed weapons, they and the other passengers might also have survived. The problem, of course, is discrimination. Most honest police chiefs can predict with a fair degree of accuracy which citizens can own a rifle or shotgun without trouble, which citizens can carry a concealed weapon without crim- inal intent, and which people should never be allowed to own any kind of firearm whatsoever. Some of them, how- ever, may let racial or other issues influence their decisions to the point where the decisions become questionable. That would prompt lawsuits and the whole thing would become a political hot potato. Consider this: Every college graduate over 21 and every high school graduate over 25 who wants a rifle, shotgun, or handgun has to prove he or she has a clean clinical record and was never treated for mental health issues, alcohol, or heroin, and is not a sex maniac -- straight or gay -- in drastic denial. A brief test by a psychologist can determine whether or not he or she falls into a category of “armed is danger- ous.” The academic graduations are important because they indicate good impulse control -- though some bright people are also nuts, these are fewer than some people like to think -- and at least suggest an IQ over the cutoff point for denying applications for military service. The people who carried out the mass shootings of recent years, one and all, were obviously either suffering from mental health issues or seriously stupid, or both, and should never have owned a gun. Let us save our mourning for the victims. The people who could have dropped the killers in their tracks and saved most of the victims should not have been com- pelled by law or custom to be kept unarmed. Letters to the Editor Trustee to step down Dear Editor: I would like to take this opportunity to thank those who have supported me as a trustee on the Franklin Lakes K-8 Board of Education. It was your words of encouragement that provided me the strength to complete this journey over the past three-plus years of my life. A special thanks to my wife, Elizabeth, and my two boys for being so understand- ing during this time. I have decided not to seek re-election as a school trustee. I’m proud to be a part of the progress that we have made, and the role that I played, but it is now time for someone else to continue this forward. Working together with my fellow trustees, we have achieved so much, but the two accomplishments that I am most proud of are the identifi- cation and selection of new leadership for our district, and the prudent fiscal responsibility to taxpayers. During my tenure, the K-8 board has saved taxpayers $1.1 million by Otto visits The North Jersey Foundation for Safety’s Otto the Auto recently visited the students of Franklin Lakes Safety Town. Otto spoke to the students about pedestrian safety. The chil- dren also watched the American Automobile Association’s pedestrian safety film ‘See and Be Seen.’ Pictured are Safety Town students Katie Mainwald, Mia Bielen, Shane Papaccioli, and Christopher Kerin with Officer Denny Knubel. operating under the two-percent tax cap levy that is per- missible by law, including a net tax increase of $0 for the upcoming 2014-15 school year. I was happy to learn that my colleagues, Ms. Susan McGowan and Mr. Larry Loprete have decided to seek re- election, each of whom has played a vital part in our prog- ress to date. I am looking forward to the next chapter of my life, spending more time with my family, as well as focus- ing on various philanthropic endeavors through my private charitable foundation, www.urciuoli.org, whose mission is education based. Enjoy the rest of the summer, and see you in Septem- ber. The opinions above are my own, and not those of the Franklin Lakes Board of Education. Craig Urciuoli Franklin Lakes