Hindsight from The New Gun Week August 10, 1998
DC Shooting Renews Security Debate
by Joseph P. Tartaro
Executive EditorThe alarming shootout on Capitol Hill on July 24 points up the limits that a person or a nation can take to insure security. The message is that there is no such thing as 100% safety as long as even one person is willing to exchange his or her life for those of others.
Here are the basic facts of the incident.
On Friday afternoon, July 24, a lone man, armed with a six-shot .38 caliber Smith & Wesson revolver, burst through a security checkpoint at a corner entrance of the Capitol, shooting and killing Capitol Police Officer Jacob Chestnut and continuing on toward a nearby suite of leadership offices. In the corridor outside the office complex of Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-TX), the man exchanged fire with Capitol Police Officer John Gibson, who had been detailed to security outside the leadership offices.
During the exchange, the assailant was seriously wounded, Officer Gibson was shot and killed and a woman tourist, Angela Dickerson, 24, was wounded in the face and shoulder. Both of the murdered officers, Chestnut, 58, and Gibson, 42, were 18-year veterans of the 1,200-member Capitol Police force charged with the security of the Capitol, nearby Senate and House office buildings, and adjacent grounds. They were armed with Glock semi-automatic pistols.
Sen. Bill Frist (R-TN), the Senate's only doctor, rushed to the Capitol and assisted one of the two fatally wounded officers, and the wounded assailant until other medical professionals arrived. The gunman was taken to the hospital in critical condition with several wounds inflicted by Gibson, despite the officer being shot in the chest.
Assailant Identified
The assailant was identified as Russell E. Weston Jr., 41, who lived at a cabin in Rimini, MT, or at his parents home in Valmeyer, IL. The picture of Weston that emerged soon after the incident was that of a classic "dangerous loner."
Weston had been involuntarily committed to a Montana mental hospital in 1996 after writing "threatening letters" to government officials. His sister, however, said that he would not take his prescription medicine and that he didn't respond to therapy.
His threatening letters and public anti-government rantings had been taken seriously enough to warrant investigation by the Secret Service as well as Montana authorities.
The Secret Service later classified him as a minor threat-probably harmless but potentially dangerous-after reviewing reports of interviews of the suspect by mental health professionals. Other reports indicated that Weston had delusional fantasies in which he believed the government put land mines on his Montana property and that the Central Intelligence Agency had him under surveillance through his own TV satellite dish.
Further evidence of Weston's character became evident when it was revealed that his father had recently ordered him to leave the parents' home in Valmeyer after the son had used a single-shot 12-gauge shotgun to kill a dozen of the father's cats. It was apparently during the visit to his parents that Weston stole the revolver from a hiding place where his father kept it.
Weston was immediately charged in absentia in the Capitol Hill shootings, even as the murdered officers' bodies were lying in state in the Capitol Rotunda.
Different Debate
The whole incident really didn't set off another round of gun control campaigning, although some, particularly in the media, did try to use it for that purpose. What it did renew is a debate over the how much security one can have in a government as open and accessible as that of the United States.
Even the gun-control professionals understood the fact that no law could have prevented what happened on Capitol Hill that hot July afternoon.
"I don't know that there's going to be much hue and cry for more gun control, because it does not appear to be the kind of situation where more gun laws would make a difference," said Robert Walker, president of Handgun Control Inc. (HCI).
Associated Press quoted Naomi Paiss of HCI as saying, "Even we in our zeal do not believe that gun control can stop every crime."
The anti-gun DC delegate to Congress, Eleanor Holmes Norton, also cautioned people not to go off the deep end in reacting to the incident.
And House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) vowed to keep the seat of American government open to the public, warning that the enemies of freedom would like nothing better than American lawmakers being isolated from the people by stringent security measures.
Symbol of Freedom
Regardless of how Americans can sometimes grouse about government intrusion in their lives, taxes and the fickleness of politicians in general, the Capitol is a symbol of the unique representative form of government we enjoy. Almost every American reveres the Capitol, even more than the White House, as the supreme symbol of our liberty, and thrills to an opportunity to visit the center of government whenever possible. We all like to walk through the marbled hall, see the historic statues of heroic political figures, the architecture, the paintings, the committee and hearing rooms and the Senate and House chambers.Unlike other so-called democracies, Americans can walk into the Capitol at almost any time and-without invitation, pass or appointment-can walk into and visit their states' senators and their own representatives, or their staff, in the nearby legislative office buildings. The men and women who make the laws which govern America are more accessible to their constituents and the people at large than anywhere in the world. In England, for instance, one must have an invitation and/or pass to get to visit one's member of Parliament or enter the building itself.
Yes, there have been some security measures put in place in recent years, mostly because of a concern for international terrorism. Some of them seem an inconvenience, but they have not changed the essentially open character of our Congress. You can't park as close to the buildings as you once could, there are also huge concrete "flower" bowls in place that would prevent a vehicular assault in most areas, and you must pass through metal detectors these days. At least normal people do; not suicidal maniacs.
And no one is forgetting the 1954 shootout in the House galleries involving Puerto Rican nationalists when five members of Congress were wounded.
There may be more stringent security measures which could be put in place, but new laws alone won't help.The suspect in the most recent incident violated a host of laws, federal, state and local. He wasn't supposed to possess a gun, but he did. He wasn't supposed to steal one from his father, but he did. He wasn't supposed to bring one into Washington, DC, but he did. He wasn't supposed to have one in Congress, but he did. Most of all, he wasn't supposed to be murdering police officers, assaulting and wounding other people, or planning to assault and kill anyone else, but he did.
The discussion now will be over what other security steps Congress can take. The most likely is possible construction of a Visitors Center, as had been previously proposed, which people would pass through on their way to visit the Capitol itself or any of the related legislative office buildings. Such a center would merely provide an extra buffer, passing people through more metal detectors, giving Capitol police a greater chance to screen suspicious people more thoroughly. Such a Visitors Center would not put an excessive or unusual barrier between the people and their government. It would allow Americans to visit this shrine of freedom whenever they wish, to see their government at work, and to talk with their lawmakers.It would not guarantee that such incidents could not happen ever again. No such security system is possible, even if you did prevent people from visiting at their own discretion.
There is no 100% foolproof system against insanity and fanaticism. If we think so, we are deluding ourselves.
New laws can be made, but they do not change history. The Ten Commandants were intended to prevent crimes. Thousands of years later, even with the fine refining hands of princes and freely elected lawmakers, criminality and insanity still flourish.
The policemen who died did their job and gave their lives. If access to government is closed as a result of their deaths, two heroes of freedom will have died in vain.
The New Gun Week is published three times a month by the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) on the 1st, 10th, and 20th. Hindsight is a commentary written by SAF President and Gun Week Executive Editor Joseph P. Tartaro. This commentary may be reprinted so long as credit is given to the author and the publication. For more information or to subscribe, write Gun Week, PO Box 488, Buffalo, NY 14209, or call 716-885-6408 Monday through Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. EST, or inquire on Compuserve to John Krull, Production manager-JohnSAF@Compuserve.com or gunweeksaf@broadviewnet.netAlso, check out the New Gun Week at http://www.GunWeek.com