Gun

After graduating from college, I served four years as an infantry officer in the Army's 25th Infantry Division. I fired everything from 9mm pistols to .50-caliber machine guns, routinely qualifying as "expert" with an M16A2 rifle. It's not despite such experience, but precisely because of it, that I think the availability of guns in America is stunningly negligent public policy. And it may get worse. One needn't be a constitutional law scholar to discern the Founding Fathers' intent in the Second Amendment.

BELIEVING he was handling an unloaded gun, an 18-year-old accidentally shot himself in the head during a webcam chat early Wednesday when the person on the other end of the conversation challenged the teen's manhood, police said.   To make matters worse, the teen's two brothers — one of whom is just 13 — were in the room when the shooting occurred, said East Detectives Capt. John Gallagher. As of Wednesday night, the teen, whom police did not identify, was brain-dead and in extremely critical condition at Temple University Hospital.

The text of this document is unavailable. Please refer to the microfilm for Tuesday, January 11, 1994.

Police divers searching the Schuylkill at Grays Avenue and 49th Street yesterday failed to find the gun used in the March 14 slaying of 16-year-old Christopher Brinkman during a holdup at a Grays Ferry drug store. The search will resume today. A suspect had said the gun was tossed in the river.

The gun that killed a 17-year-old Coatesville youth last week was stolen, Chester County District Attorney Anthony Sarcione said yesterday. Sarcione declined to discuss where the gun came from, saying the matter is still under investigation. Anthony Glasco, 17, of Coatesville, died of a head wound Jan. 8. Authorities said he and four other youths were drinking beer and playing with the gun in the family apartment of James Burr, 17, in Caln Township. Burr allegedly shot Glasco while the two were playing Russian roulette.

Service on SEPTA's R5 commuter rail line was disrupted for about two hours late Wednesday while police investigated a report of a man with a gun on board a train at the Paoli station. No gun was found and no arrest was made. The incident began at 9:14 p.m. when police were told that a man had held a gun to the torso of another passenger, 31, who was an acquaintance. Passengers were evacuated from the train, and the conductor locked the 35-year-old suspect and two men traveling with him in one of the cars.

Sydney Parham, 57, says he thought his gun was empty. He was wrong. Parham told police that the gun went off when his "lover," Monica Stewart, 41, playfully reached for it while he was holding it in his home, on Malcolm Street near 53rd, on March 21. Assistant District Attorney Paul Riley said Stewart was shot in the chest and died. "There was not supposed to be anything in my gun," Parham said to Homicide Detective Ivan Pitt in a statement read during a preliminary hearing this week.

The two West Philadelphia teen-age friends were playing with their guns, twirling them "wild West-style," the prosecutor said. Then one of the boys pulled the trigger, and nothing happened. So, David T. Williams, 17, of Fairmount Avenue near 45th Street, would later tell police: "I twirled it again and I stopped and pulled the trigger and the gun went off. " Assistant District Attorney George Shotzbarger said the bullet hit John Chamberlain, 16, of June Court, who had been visiting Williams, in the chest and killed him on June 9. Yesterday, Williams waived his preliminary hearing before Municipal Judge Arthur S. Kafrissen in exchange for an agreement that he be freed on $25,000 bail.

A police officer had his gun pinched yesterday by a man he had sought to question about a stolen car in North Philadelphia. Police said the man fled with the officer's .38-caliber service revolver, which later was found in an abandoned house on 6th Street near Daly. Police gave this account: Officer John Buleza of the 26th Police District, Girard and Montgomery avenues, tried to question the man as he got out of a suspected stolen car he had just parked in Randolph Street near Norris about 5:50 p.m. yesterday.

Municipal Judge Seamus P. McCaffery praised Officer Nathan Ramos yesterday for showing admirable restraint by not firing when a suspect pointed a semiautomatic at his chest. But the public defender attacked the cop's credibility, arguing that if his story were true, he would have shot Horace Peaches, 20, before arresting him. "This is a Catch-22," McCaffery told Ramos at a sentencing hearing for Peaches. "Had you shot him, you would have been criticized for overreacting. Since you didn't shoot, you are being criticized," accused of lying.