A Mindless Way to Celebrate

The most mindless way to welcome the new year is to load a gun and start firing bullets into the air. It is not only mindless, but it is dangerous and sometimes deadly, and it is spreading in Orange County and elsewhere.

The most tragic case of this New Year’s Eve occurred in Los Angeles where a 13-year-old boy was killed when struck in the head by a stray bullet. Police say no arrests have been made because so many bullets were fired in the area at the time that they have thus far been unable to determine who fired the bullet that hit the youth.

Orange County had a near-miss on Christmas Eve, an even more mindless occasion for celebrative gunfire. A Santa Ana youngster escaped with what police said was a minor cut “when he walked out of his house and got hit on the top of the head by a falling bullet.” One man in Santa Ana was killed when his handgun accidentally discharged, sending a bullet into his chest. There were also reports of bullets tearing through the roof of a convalescent home and several reports of homes and apartments being hit.

New Year’s Eve was worse. One police officer in Anaheim described it as “. . . one of the worst New Year’s” they had ever seen. In a five-hour period beginning an hour before midnight, police there arrested 30 people, including five for firearms offenses, and responded to 79 calls of people firing bullets into the air.

Random firing of guns into the air is against the law. Those laws probably should be made even tougher, but even tougher laws will not work until people get it into their heads that what goes up must come down. Firing bullets into the air celebrates nothing so much as stupidity.

The use, or more accurately the misuse, of handguns on holidays is but another reminder--a series of warning shots, if you will--that sensible handgun controls should not be delayed any longer. When those controls are finally in place, there will truly be cause to celebrate.