Acres of guns, annals of agony
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The National Rifle Association has been holding its annual meeting in Pittsburgh for the past few days, heralded with billboards promising "acres of guns and gear."
Here's a billboard you didn't see, but would have if the group was honest about its mission to paint even the most sensible gun laws as a step toward tyranny: "The NRA: Because if Richard Poplawski can't have an arsenal, neither can you."
Mr. Poplawski, of course, was one of those "law-abiding" citizens whose right to bear arms the NRA claims to be protecting. Unfortunately, he ceased to be law abiding on April 4, 2009, the date on which he's accused of gunning down three Pittsburgh police officers in Stanton Heights after they answered his mother's call about a dispute she was having with him.
Mr. Poplawski, then 22, didn't have one gun that day. He had several, including an AK-47 assault-style rifle and enough ammunition to hold off police for four hours, putting at risk the other officers who tried to save their fallen comrades, not to mention the entire neighborhood. Soon he'll be standing trial for killing officers Eric Kelly, 41, Stephen Mayhle, 29, and Paul Sciullo III, 37. The prosecution is seeking the death penalty.
It appears that Mr. Poplawski got his weapons legally. Somehow I doubt that's any comfort to the widows and children of these three officers, since their loved ones would be just as dead either way.
Not surprisingly, Mr. Poplawski turned out to have a troubled past -- kicked out of the military for assaulting an officer, attacking his girlfriend, prowling white supremacist and anti-Semitic websites, nursing a growing paranoia that President Obama was going to take away his weapons. That's a delusion if ever there were one, what with the gun lobby's stranglehold on statehouses, Congress and the Supreme Court. But it's one that the NRA finds useful in its fundraising efforts, as do conservatives looking to fire up their base.
First Published May 1, 2011 12:00 am
