DO I “GOTTA”?

By Edwin Cooney

“Gotta love Florida's concealed hand gun law!” proclaimed the headline of an email a friend of mine sent me recently. Its author had a “happy” story to tell.

Two men, 22-year-old Donicio Arrindell and 21-year-old Frederick Gadson, were stupid enough to rob a Plantation, Florida Subway shop late on a Wednesday evening not long ago.

The two men surely saw the 71-year-old John Lovell finishing his meal as they robbed the cashier but must have disregarded him. Eventually, they got around to robbing him as well and shoved him into a bathroom. What they didn’t know, until it was too late, was that John Lovell, a former Marine pilot who’d flown both John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson before working for Delta and then Pan Am, possessed a concealed weapon. He was also a crack shot.

When it was all over, Arrindell was dead and Gadson was in Broward Medical Center with a head wound.

We who have the luxury of reading the story can be excused, I suppose, if we view it much as we would a good western. After all, the “good guy” who was the victim of Arrindell’s and Gadson’s selfish and willful deed came out on top. However, I think it is fair to say that none of us would like to have personally witnessed or taken any part in that tragic incident.

Even more, as I see it, the tragedy goes beyond the actual occurrence of the incident to the forces that brought it about and subsequently echoed in the wake of the tragedy.

First, here are two young men with their entire lives ahead of them who somehow have gotten it into their heads that they, through the use of force, may reasonably obtain money by intimidating and perhaps harming the rest of us. Thus, they obtain masks and weapons and proceed to bully their way to their definition of prosperity.

Second, because men like Arrindell and Gadson do what they do, we’re compelled to spend billions of dollars a year on adequate police protection and penal retention which could be better spent on education, health care, or our own personal enjoyment.

Third, and even more tragic, we’re intimidated into believing that if everyone carried a gun, the incidence of crime throughout the country would dramatically diminish. In other words, if Arrindell and Gadson had known that Lovell was armed, and perhaps that every other restaurant in town was serving an armed customer, they wouldn’t have dared commit armed robbery!

We’re informed that thanks to Florida’s concealed weapon law, John Lovell, a man of steady nerve and skill with a firearm, was able to effectively end the criminal careers of Arrindell and Gadson. That’s all well and good, but there’s a crucial piece of information that’s not in the email that I received.

Many years ago, I had the occasion to ride on a Trailways bus between Batavia and Rochester, New York with an inmate who’d just been released from New York’s Attica State Prison. (Back then it was still called Attica State Correctional Facility.) That particular prisoner told me that many times those who commit armed robbery do so with empty weapons. He insisted that the weapon is often strictly for show. Thus, what we haven’t been told is whether either Arrindell’s or Gadson’s weapons were loaded. As some will justifiably point out, in no state is burglary or even armed robbery punishable by death.

Still, a largely unarmed public can be excused if it takes seriously the sight of a thug wielding a weapon whether empty or loaded. Nevertheless, I believe that we, the innocent public, often miscalculate the forces that motivate antisocial behavior.

As much as they need stopping, men and women desperate enough to commit antisocial behavior will never be stopped by sheer numbers. Whether they are involved in an armed robbery, murder, terrorism or international war, they face danger which is usually quite secondary to their cause. Adolf Hitler, as he demonstrated on April 30th, 1945, was ready to end his life, not as an act of apology or closure for his victims, but rather as a statement that he alone controlled his fate. Although Osama Ben Laden concealed himself for nearly a decade in that Afghan compound, he wasn’t intimidated from financing and directing terror by the likelihood of his own demise.

It’s my guess that, dominated by their frustrations and resentments toward society, neither Arrindell nor Gadson was capable of comprehending their ultimate fate; hence they gave in to their greedy hunger. My guess also is that John Lovell, being the respectable citizen he is, doesn’t view himself as quite the hero the author of that email sees him as being. My guess is that Lovell, however he may justify his own action that Wednesday night not so long ago, views that action with far more solemnity than he does with triumph.

Florida’s concealed weapon law may occasionally satisfy our legitimate outrage, but if we see it as an effective antidote to armed robbery, we’re nearly as foolish as both Arrindell and Gadson were.

No, I don’t “gotta love” Florida’s concealed weapons law. As a conscientious and informed citizen, I only “gotta” sadly acknowledge its existence!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY