Tragedy averted

The story of Richard Yanis, the Pottstown 15-year-old arrested last week for plotting to shoot up students in his school is the kind that usually has a tragically familiar ending.

Fortunately, this one didn't. Yanis was arrested before he could carry out his plan.

Every lawmaker in Harrisburg should consider why the story ended before innocent lives were lost: When Yanis' father noticed his guns missing, he reported them lost or stolen. Turns out, his son stole them. Because of the report, police were able to uncover the son's plot in time.

And every lawmaker in Harrsiburg should search his or her soul about their failure to pass a law last year that would require lost or stolen guns to be reported to the police.

Oh, wait: Maybe they're still searching their soul from the last time a stolen gun was used in a crime. That was the gun used by John Lewis to kill Police Officer Chuck Cassidy last year. Lewis used a gun that had been stolen in Ohio, though it was revealed that a gun owned by his mother, a Pennsylvania state corrections officer, had been stolen, though never reported.

The rationale for keeping this and other common sense laws off the books continues to defy logic. The Pottstown case is a wake-up call. *