The Chattanooga news. [volume] (Chattanooga, Tenn.) 1891-1939, 1920-12-11
SALE OF PISTOLS
BREEDS MURDER
Says Commissioner Heron.
Gen. ChamIee and T. Pope
Shepherd Give Views.
PRISON TERM FOR 'ToTER'
Heron Says Police Work
Good-Shepherd Admires
English System.

The fact that in the police yea
ending Sept. /, 1920, CHATTANOOGA ha,
more murders than did the CITY O.
London, with its 100000 souls, II
any one year between 1914 and 1918
inclusive, as published in The News
thursday, evoked wide interest from
ponce offlcials, criminal prosecutors
and prominent lawyers generally.
IN the view of Commissioner
e. D. Heron, in charge of the
IRE and police departments, the
large number Of people carrying
pistols and the. sale OF firearms
by the merchants has an impor.
tant part in the frequency of
murderous attacks in this CITY,
ne commissioner was of the
opinion that carrying firearms
without permit should be nun.
ished much more severely than is
now done. penitentiary SEN
tenoe was his suggestion.
He believed, however that Chatta-
nooga. with smaller police and de-
tective force than is usual for cities
OF its size. showed up right at the
top" in statistics of murderers caught
and stolen goods recovered. This he
work OF the men of the force.
World Wave of Crime?
From another angle came a state
ment by Atty. Gen. George w. Cham
lee. who attributed Chattanooga's
large number OF murders more par
ticularly to wave of crime through
out the world, following in the wake
of the World war. Chattanooga, he
said, had been no worse than other
cities. T. Pope Shepherd, a noted
criminal lawyer and chairman o" the
democratic county committee, ex-
pressed the belief that 1t was the SUI
-periority Of the English system which
was responsible for the tremendously
smaller percentage of murders there.
when a murder Is committed there,
somebody Is hanged, and that ends
it," was his terse way of putting it,
Heron Says Police Do Good Work.
Commissioner Herron's ideas on the
situation are:
"There are too many people carry
Ing pistols. The law does not seem to
be severe enough to stop the practice |
of carrying firearms. In my opinion, |
until the punishment for this offense |
Is severe enough carrying a peniten- |
tiary sentence, as 1t does in many other |
states. then and only then will we be |
able to stop the many murders In this |
city and county.
Regarding the burglaries here be-
ing so few, I attribute that to the ex-
cellent work OF the police department |
and detective force The men on the
beats are on the job and are thoroughly
honest and conscientious. The detec-
tive force spends a good deal of time
picking up suspicious and dangerous
thereby making some very
excellent catches of criminals before
they are able to operate. If our rec
ord of murderers caught and the re-
covery of stolen property are com
pared with any other city of equal
up at the top. although we have
smaller police and detective force than
any city Of our size.
Another thing that accounts for
some OF the murders we have here is
the selling of firearms by our mer-
chants. These are a class of law
violators that are very hard for the po-
lice department to nab.
"Orders were issued some time ago
10 both the chiefs of the police and
departments to give .partic-
liar attention to those selling firearms
and when caught this department will
prosecute them to the limit but, of
'ourse, the j,ries will have 10 give us
/ good deal of helm along this line"
Human Life Too Cheap.
Atty.-Gcn. George w. Chamlee's
Jews follow: 49,.
Following in the wake Of every
.reat war. we have a crime. wave
throughout the world; Chattanooga is
citing her part
Tho moving picture hero In muir