Sometimes you`ve got to ask yourself whether this country has gone completely insane.
A full-page sporting-goods-store advertisement in the Houston Post featured a cheery array of fun items displayed over a colorful wintertime backdrop. Games and leisure-time toys were on sale at the chain of stores-Oshman`s Sporting Goods-at clearance prices.
Each item was pictured. There was a Wilson basketball for $17.99. There was a men`s tennis shoe for $29.99 a pair. There was a basketball backboard, complete with pole and net, for $99.99. There was a 9 mm Ruger handgun for $319.99. . . .
That`s right. There among the game equipment was a wicked-looking pistol, marked down from $384.97.
This country is in the process of shooting itself to death. According to the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, in 1990-the most recent year for which figures are available-handguns were used in 11,750 murders. Handguns were used in approximately 12,000 suicides. The coalition, quoting government statistics, says there are 60 million handguns privately owned in the U.S. Government figures show that offenders armed with handguns commit an average of 639,000 violent crimes each year. Gunshot wounds to children ages 16 and under have increased 300 percent since 1986.
You can attribute all of the handgun violence to any number of societal factors. But this full-page newspaper ad was jarring. A basketball and a tennis shoe and a handgun.
I spoke with two clerks at different branches of Oshman`s sporting-goods stores. Both requested that I not name them.
”All you have to do to buy a gun in our store is walk in, show you have a valid Texas driver`s license, fill out a form, and walk out,” the first clerk said. ”A lot of people use American Express or Visa cards to pay for their guns.”
There is no waiting period in Texas, she said; if a customer lies in filling out the required form, there is no sure way to know. ”We advertise different guns in the paper,” she said. ”The Ruger is a pretty good value.” She said that when a person comes in to buy a handgun, ”We put the gun in one sack and staple the sack shut. Then we put the ammunition in a separate sack and staple that shut. Then we usually will walk the person out of the store.”
At the other Oshman`s store, the clerk said: ”It doesn`t take very long to fill out the form. It`s 10 or 12 questions.”
Does he have any idea why the typical customer purchases a handgun?
”We don`t ask,” he said. ”I would assume it`s for their own protection.”
And is he required to sell a gun to anyone who wants one?
”No,” he said. ”We`re allowed to make the decision to turn them down. I`ve turned people down.”
For what reason?
”Oh, you get some customers who seem weird,” he said. ”They just come in wanting a gun and they seem upset. They indicate they`ve got a problem right now. They indicate that they want to handle it. I`ll tell a person like that that I`m not going to sell him a gun until he gets his head clear.”
When a person like that leaves the store, is the clerk confident that no one else will sell the person a gun?
”Oh, he`ll probably find some place that will let him fill out the form and sell him the gun,” the clerk said. ”Some store that needs the sale bad enough. He`ll get his gun.”
Basketballs and tennis shoes and handguns. For whatever reason, handguns seem to have become a part of the American Way. James Brady, the former press secretary to President Ronald Reagan, was shot in the head and grievously wounded during the assassination attempt on Reagan. Brady and his wife have devoted themselves to asking Americans to reconsider the ease with which handguns can be purchased.
In Las Vegas the other night, Brady and his wife, Sarah, were booed off the stage during a speech at the University of Nevada where they had been invited by the student government to talk about gun control. Mrs. Brady reportedly was heckled throughout her 40-minute speech.
”Jim and I have been through a hell of a lot in our lives,” Mrs. Brady reportedly told the jeering audience as her husband sat beside her in his wheelchair. ”You may think sitting there that you`re putting us through something, but this is nothing like we`ve been through in the past.”
According to one of the sporting-goods-store clerks in Houston, the typical walk-in customer for a handgun is ”just an average citizen. Someone like you or me or our neighbor next door.”
