LET HIM DO IT FOR WEAPONS AS WELL

In this holiday season, it's fitting to recognize the generosity of Walter Annenberg. His latest gift of $500 million is directed at enhancing public education which he and many others deem to be in a crisis condition. Annenberg still has lots of money left from a remarkable fortune developed on the humble base of the Daily Racing Form. Perhaps he might direct his next gift--a billion or so--to buy up all of the guns in the United States and close down gun manufacturing nationwide. That's about what it's going to take if we want to be serious--really serious--about curtailing gun slaughter in America.

We have 200 million firearms in America. Anywhere from 100 to 200 thousand guns are lugged to school everyday. In some cities, more pistols than book bags are brought to school each morning. We are a bang-bang nation. We love Tom Mix, Machine Gun Kelly, Ma Barker, John Dillinger, John Wayne, Jimmy Cagney, Clint Eastwood and Kevin Costner. Even American women like weaponry. Smith and Wesson say its "Lady Smith" is selling like hotcakes as just the right Christmas gift. Grandma needs one when she goes to her bridge club.

We love 'em, that is, until some guy goes berserk on the Long Island railroad and begins popping away at random--or some guy wanders into a post office or a McDonald's or a law office or a chicken joint and mows down anyone within range. We lead the world in homicides per capita and have permanently retired the trophy for multiple murders with guns. No nation on earth kills people as quickly, efficiently and massively as we do. It's part of our technological leadership in the global marketplace.

People are uptight about all this murder and mayhem, but don't really want to do all that much about it. On handguns, we're going to have a five-day waiting period before one can legally buy an assault weapon. While the intent is laudable, the effort is nearly meaningless -- "laughably inadequate" was the description of said one magazine that was actually praising the measure. The attorney general wants to set up nationwide licensed marksmanship academics. This will ensure that we pop the guy between the eyes when we shoot. Others propose registering firearms--sort of the way you do when you buy a new toaster and mail in a card to General Electric. Senator Daniel Moynihan (D., NY) wants to tax bullets, turning the gun problem over to the IRS for an audit every now and then.

The Senate wants to build a lot of boot camps and prisons and send all these armed killers off to be disciplined. We already have experimented with boot camps and they have been shown to be virtually worthless, but proponents like them whether they work or not because they are cheaper than prisons. Commenting on the experts saying boot camps weren't achieving much, Governor Zell Miller (D., GA) put it this way, "I don't give a damn what they say, we're going to continue to do it in Georgia." Good for you, Governor, you old crime fighter you.

As long as there are 200 million guns in America and 1.5 million new ones are pumped into the mix each year, the wicked, wackos and weirdos will be pulling the triggers. So back to Mr. Annenberg. Urge him to put up a billion or so and make America as gunless as Switzerland or Britain.

Unconstitutional, you say, as you've out there on the range doing quick draw and pumping bullets into a target shaped like a body. The Second Amendment to the Constitution reads: "A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the rights of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

What do those words mean? There's the liberal, sweeping definition advanced by the National Rifle Association and the John Wayne Memorial Society claiming that every nun at the Little Sisters of the Poor has the constitutional right to keep a howitzer under her cot and a pistol on her hip.

Then there's the conservative, narrow reading of the Constitution focusing on the first words of the Amendment and specifically the word "militia." In today's terms, "militia" would be the armed forces, national guard, police and sheriffs. They can keep guns and Congress can prohibit them from anyone else. Let Congress act and then let the Supreme Court make the jurisprudential call -- whether liberal or conservative. Up 'till now, the justices have never overturned a gun control law.

Will Congress pass the Annenberg Gun Buy Out Act? Of course not. On firearms Congress is like Governor Miller: "Even if what we do won't work, we are going to continue to do it! That shows we mean business." Rest assured that 1994 will set another record for slaughter on our streets. Happy New Year.