Reckless Use of Firearms

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jul 12, 1906

Reckless Use of Firearms

Regarding the reckless use of firearms in this country and a corresponding reckless disregard of human life, it is asserted by a writer in the N. Y. World that one person in every five in the metropolis carries a pistol. He says:—

Skeptical persons can have no better proof of the truth of these assertions than is contained in the record of the events of almost any day. Scarcely a day passes that an argument, an assault, or an alarm of some kind does not collect a crowd, and in the crowd can always be found enough pistols to put Deadwood to shame.

And do not think that New Yorkers carry revolvers merely for the sake of carrying them, for on the slightest provocation they draw them and begin to shoot.

Only a few days ago a negro, arrested by a policeman, broke away and ran up Broadway. A passenger just alighting from a car drew a revolver and began shooting at the fugitive. A man in an automobile drew a revolver and fired a few more shots; a man standing in front of a hotel joined in the bombardment, and the negro for his own protection stopped and allowed the policeman, who alone had refrained from shooting, to recapture him.

Members of a wedding party in Eldridge Street drank too much. A fight started, and in the twinkling of an eye, four revolvers were flourishing in the little room.

A policeman is authority for the statement that every other Italian carries a revolver, and some of them two.

Such statements go far to account for the record of ten thousand homicides yearly which stands to the nation's discredit.