NO Guns in the Court Room (Not More) Will Improve Security
/Friday's courtroom shooting in Atlanta
gave urgency to Chief Lake Superior Court Judge John J. Pera's two-year
campaign to ban all guns from Lake County's courts. "I'm very upset at
what happened in Atlanta, and I'm afraid some day it could happen in my
own courtroom," Pera said. The way that attack occurred should show
Pera is right about wanting all guns -- even those owned by police
officers -- to be surrendered at the door. In that violent eruption in
Atlanta, Brian Nichols was on trial for rape and other charges when
police said he fatally shot Georgia Superior Court Judge Rowland
Barnes, his court reporter and a deputy sheriff during an escape from
the Fulton County Courthouse. He also is accused of critically wounding
another deputy sheriff and later killing an immigration agent and
holding a woman hostage for hours before surrendering. The Atlanta
Journal-Constitution reported Monday that Nichols took deputy Cynthia
Hall's gun from a lockbox, using her own keys. A courthouse
surveillance camera recorded the attack on Hall, but no one in the
control center noticed, the newspaper reported. A better system for
locking up guns is clearly needed. They need to be locked up where
criminals have no possibility of access to them. And security monitors
need to be monitored closely. [more] and [more]
