In Washington last week a stray bullet from a gun battle raging outside smashed through a kitchen window, killing a 47-year-old grandmother, Rosemary Stevens. Sometime before, a dispute among three teenage girls in Miami over a vandalized Cadillac erupted into gunfire and a 15-year-old girl was mortally wounded by a shot from a .9-mm automatic. In Houston last month, a Colombian man and woman were shot execution-style in their car.
These are scenes from an epidemic of homicidal violence that has turned the streets of many American cities into virtual war zones. With a month left before year's end, all-time murder...