Death by gun all too common

Once again this weekend the headlines have been dominated by death by gun as another victim of so-called gangland shootings met his end. Daniel Gaynor became the 18th person to die in gun attacks so far in 2010. No doubt, there will be many more. Gaynor, 25, was walking with his partner and two young children in Finglas on Saturday evening when a gunman walked up and fired a number of shots from a handgun, at least one of which fatally wounded him in the neck. There are those who say that if you live by the sword, you die by the sword, or in this case, the gun. Gaynor was a known criminal, convicted of witness intimidation in 2006. He was following a family tradition. His father, Robert McGrath, was shot dead by armed gardai in 1992 after he pointed a shotgun at them during the attempted armed robbery at Tara Post Office in Skryne. It is all very well to say let these criminals shoot each other as they are only doing the rest of us a favour. But look at the consequences and possible consequences. Apart from the obvious taking of human life, there is also the possibility of the death of innocent people in the crossfire, which has already happened in some cases. Gaynor was walking with his partner and two young children. How easily it could have been for things to go wrong, for a stray bullet to hit the wrong person. And lest we think that this is all away in Dublin and doesn't affect us, it is not that far away. Gaynor's assassin ran towards the Tolka Valley area. How many times have we driven through there on the way to Glasnevin and Croke Park? Or we could just as easily stop in the pub in Cabra where gang leader Eamon Dunne was shot dead in April as he attended a 40th birthday party. We should not be oblivious and complacent to these shootings. Indeed, the gangland warfare came much closer to us the previous Saturday night, when there was an attempted murder in McDonough's Pub in Bettystown. In this case, the target, who was known to gardai, was lucky, as he managed to escape to the toilet area of the pub before his would-be assassins fled the scene. This is not how a civilised society should be operating - this is like the 'wild west' of the movies. It seems now that it is dangerous to go out for a drink in a local hostelry without the possibility that the swing doors will fly open saloon style and some gun-toting individual will take a pot shot at somebody. This may sound like an exaggeration, but how do we know who else is sharing the public house with us, and what or who they may be mixed up with. In the incident in Bettystown, the man fled into the toilets but was pursued by the gunmen. He was hit at least twice in the incident although eight rounds were fired by two gun men, who fled the scene on foot. There were about 60 people on the premises at the time of the incident, and the front bar was full. Thankfully, nobody else was injured in the shooting. It is hard to believe that it is just over 14 years since the shooting dead of journalist Veronica Guerin, on the Naas Road in Dublin. Following her death, there was a major crackdown on drug related and criminal activities, successful for a period. But a new, younger generation of criminals rose through the ranks like the drug-dealing Corbally brothers, Paul and Kenneth, shot dead in Clondalkin in June. It was reported that the hired killers were paid €40,000 and a bonus if both brothers were killed. A 16 year-old boy wounded in the attack. Since June 2008, there have been almost 40 violent killings in Dublin, including young Daniel McAnespie, last seen in Blanchardstown in February and found dead in a ditch in Rathfeigh earlier this summer. There was considerable outrage some years back when an innocent plumber was killed while working in a home where a hit was carried out, with all kinds of promises made by the Government on tackling this type of crime. Nothing seems to have changed in a world where the price of a human life depends on how big an operator a person is in the illegal drugs trade.