The Nation: Deadly Way of Life

As he had been assigned to guard the Jordanian embassy last week, London Constable Peter Slimon did something most unusual for a bobby: he armed himself. En route to the embassy he encountered a bank stickup and pulled his revolver. In the ensuing gunfight one of the bandits wounded Slimon—but not before the bobby had killed one of the robbers.

Such an incident would have gone virtually unnoticed in any major city in the U.S. In London, Fleet Street and the BBC treated the shootout as if it were a holocaust. The reason: that was only the third shooting of a suspect by a London policeman since 1951.

Compare that with, say, New York City, where policemen carry their pistols even when they are off duty. In 1972 alone there were 67 suspects killed by policemen, while five officers themselves were shot and killed. All of which indicates again—if more indicators are needed—that guns and violence are too easily accepted as an inevitable way of American life. The grisliest recent proof of this came from Atlanta, a city that holds the unenviable distinction now of leading the nation in the homicide rate.

The 255th and last murder on the 1972 books occurred late New Year's Eve, when a Florida man telephoned his wife from a booth to assure her that he had arrived safely and that she should not worry about the horror stories she had heard about Atlanta. His last words to her were: "He's got a gun . . . no, you're not going to . . ."