New York Daily News - Monday, January 23rd, 2006

Courage in the face of a gun
Editorial

The NYPD sergeant and officer who left trigger-happy repeat offender Damian Henry in a bloody heap early Saturday are owed the thanks of all law-abiding New Yorkers. The cops displayed the highest valor in facing a thug with an Uzi-style machine pistol, and they did what was necessary in riddling Henry with bullets.

It is indeed cause for joy that Sgt. Ajay Kapour and Officer Andrew Rydlewski cut Henry down before his gunfire harmed them or anyone else. They were overmatched in weaponry and had heard Henry squeeze off a round - and still they gave chase, waging a gun duel from as close as 15 feet. Greater bravery is hard to conceive.

Remember, too - for surely these two officers did - that gun violence has taken the lives of two NYPD cops and wounded nine others since June. Incredibly, one of the dead, Detective Dillon Stewart, was slain by a 9-mm. that Henry had allegedly used to shoot up a Brooklyn diner. He was out on bail on that charge, and a jury had previously acquitted him of a 2002 cop shooting.

This time, the criminal justice system is coming down harder on Henry - or at least has the tools to. He has been charged under the Crimes Against Cops Law enacted last month by the Legislature and Gov. Pataki after a campaign by the Daily News. He faces a minimum of 20 to 40 years in prison, up from 15 to 25, and could get life. Brooklyn District Attorney Joe Hynes should trumpet the case as a lesson in what now happens to criminals who lay a finger on cops.

Some may be deterred by the law's tougher sentences, and those who persist in violence will be locked away for that much longer. Ultimately, though, cops and civilians alike will suffer the ravages of gun violence until New York wins the war against illegal weapons on the street. The fight has been going poorly of late.

Military-style assault weapons of the kind wielded by Henry have been showing up in increasing numbers since Congress and President Bush allowed federal ban on the guns to expire in late 2004. They did the bidding of the National Rifle Association, and it's all but certain that innocent blood will be spilled because of the blind irresponsibility of the NRA and its agents in Washington.

At the same time, Bush, Congress and the NRA have erected ever stronger legal shields around gun manufacturers and dealers to protect them from liability for pumping guns into a black market that sends them here from states like Georgia and Virginia.

NRA sneak attack

The gun forces will stop at nothing to keep the pipeline open, and nothing shows their political muscle more dramatically than a legislative dirty trick that stripped New York City of its last great hope for holding the gun merchants to account.

Mayor Bloomberg, who has made fighting illegal weapons a centerpiece of his second term, Sens. Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton and the state's entire congressional delegation were played for suckers when someone - no one takes responsibility - slipped poisonous language into a federal budget bill in November.

Largely unnoticed until recently, the 45-word provision all but kills New York's chances of successfully suing gun manufacturers and distributors who allow their wares to leak into the black market. How so? By barring city lawyers from using their most powerful evidence: federal records identifying the worst of the death merchants.

The law in question originated with former Mayor Rudy Giuliani and was kept alive by Bloomberg. Thanks to Brooklyn Federal Judge Jack Weinstein, the case appeared likely to become the gun industry's worst nightmare. So the NRA turned to Washington.

Late last year, the Republican-led Congress voted to immunize the industry from such legal action, but Weinstein ruled the city's case could continue anyway. That now turns out to be a hollow victory because at the very end of the legislative process, without public discussion, an NRA lackey sneaked a clause into the budget bill forbidding the use in court of data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that trace the origins of guns used in crimes.

The statistics are devastating. In 1998, for example, 57% of the crime guns were traced back to just 1.2% of all gun shops. No wonder the NRA is desperate to keep such damning numbers from a jury.

The city's lawyers must now fight with both hands tied behind their backs. We wish them luck. If New York is to win the larger battle for safer streets, however, our representatives in Washington must learn from this slimy episode, keep a sharper eye on the NRA's operatives and ensure that nothing like this ever happens again.

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