We should use this moment as an opportunity to attack complacency. Violent crime in America remains much too high–3.5 times higher than it was in 1961. Twenty or 30 years ago, criminals used Saturday-night specials or revolvers. Now, with automatics and semiautomatics, not only is the bullet more powerful but the round-capacity is much greater. The shooter can change magazines much more quickly than he could reload a revolver. So he lets more rounds go and more people are killed.

I know something about the bumpy road to victory. In 1994, when I was deputy commissioner of the NYPD, we held a press conference to announce a big drop in crime. Just as the conference began, my beeper went off. The message that scrolled across the screen said there were two people shot dead in Queens. As I watched, the number climbed to three people, then four people, then five. It turned out two hit men had busted their way into an apartment and blown away seven people, including a few who weren’t involved in their drug deal. When you go to a scene like that, the victims look almost peaceful. You walk into a room and see the dead neatly laid out. Then you look more closely. You see how the victims put their hands up at the last second, trying to block the bullets. And you see how the bullets went through their hands, into their faces. And you realize, even in the final moment, people always hope the shooters will change their minds.

New Orleans, where I’ve been consulting lately, has had the biggest decline in violent crime of any major U.S. city from 1996 to 1998. But something awful happened there this month. A drug dealer killed a drug buyer who’d brought his girlfriend and her 2-year-old kid to the scene. Then the dealer shot the girlfriend, who survived, in both her arms. And then he executed the 2-year-old kid. Episodes like that one show us that we have a long, long way to go. We’re going to celebrate a millennium this year. The murder rate is five times higher than it was 100 years ago.

I’d like to see handguns disappear in America, but I don’t think that will happen. I do think it’s possible to limit gun production to less-powerful guns like bolt-action rifles, shotguns and revolvers. After all, we don’t mass-produce cars that go 200 miles an hour. Why? Because they’re dangerous. Manufacturing these kinds of weapons would still give hunters and people who use guns for self-defense access to the guns they want.

In the meantime, there are four other steps we can take. First, any gun that’s made should be put through a ballistics computer before it’s sold. That way, if an investigator picks up a shell casing at the scene of any incident, he’ll know who the last legal owner of the gun was. A ballistics computer should be in every state in the country, hooked up via an intranet to one another. Second, nobody should get a gun in this country unless he’s fingerprinted. Third, we should aggressively prosecute felons who attempt to buy guns. More than 60,000 times this year our system of name checks prevented ex-convicts from buying handguns. The attempt itself is punishable by 10 years in prison. The felons are stopped from getting a gun that day, but neither the ATF nor the FBI tracks them down. Finally, states should punish people for gun crimes just as fiercely as the Feds sometimes do.

This past March, President Clinton directed the attorney general to prosecute anyone who commits a gun crime, from illegal possession on up, under existing federal laws. Those convicted in a federal court will serve about three times the prison sentence of those convicted in state court. Unfortunately, except for Richmond, Va., New Orleans and a few other cities, U.S. attorneys have done next to nothing to enforce these laws.

State and local cops must also do a better job of solving murders and shootings. Half the murderers in this country are never caught, and in nonfatal shootings an even greater percentage of predators remain free to kill. Doctors need to report to authorities all psychiatric patients they consider dangerous, so their names can be entered into a national database of people who should be denied guns. As it is today, Norman Bates would have no trouble buying a gun.

Manufacturers of guns and violent video- games aren’t the only culprits. It’s time to also blame ourselves for our complacency.