Today I didn't even have to use my AK I got to say it was a good day -- Ice Cube

No one would mistake the Flat Rock area of Powhatan County for South Central Los Angeles.

Homicides are a shocking rarity in this slice of rural Virginia, much less those involving an assault rifle. But Powhatan Sheriff Gregory A. Neal said an AK-47 is what killed 18-year-old Tahliek Taliaferro.

The AK-47 and its imitators have left a bloody imprint on our culture that extends beyond the rap video.

"Nearly all, if not all gun shows in Virginia, you can buy an AK-47 knockoff from any seller, any weekend of the year," said Brian Siebel, senior attorney with the Washington-based Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

Taliaferro was slain and a juvenile was injured Tuesday evening. Three suspects -- Stephanie Reynolds, 19, Ethan Scott Parrish, 24, and Joey Parrish, 17 -- remain at large.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Washington ban on handguns. In the process, it affirmed that a right of individual gun ownership exists.

That right should not extend to assault weapons.

"It's really only useful for shooting human beings," Siebel said. "You don't need 50 rounds for target practice [or] for some sort of self-defense situation. And nobody would take one of these guns hunting."

Philip Van Cleave, president of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, says the AK-47's prowess is exaggerated. He said it's a weapon no faster or no more powerful than a hunting rifle; the only difference is it can be loaded with a high-capacity magazine.

As for the Powhatan slaying, "I guess when I heard about the AK-47, I just shrugged. . . . [The killer] could have used a deer rifle to the same effect."

Well, I say when it comes to guns, we've passed a tipping point in the balance between rights and wretched excess.

The federal assault-weapons ban signed into law by President Bill Clinton expired in September 2004. Six states ban assault weapons, but Virginia isn't one of them.

Van Cleave called the federal ban "a joke." But Siebel says the rate in which assault weapons were recovered in crime dropped 66 percent during the decade when the law was in place.

Josh Horwitz, a board member of the Virginia Center for Public Safety, said the center's focus is on closing the "gun-show loophole" that allows unlicensed dealers -- about 30 percent of the dealers at gun shows -- to sell weapons without background checks.

"I can tell you since they lifted the assault-weapons ban, they've become much more prevalent," Horwitz, executive director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, said of AK-47s.

"I think the best thing we can do is reauthorize the national assault-weapons ban. But right now, that's difficult. And the Virginia legislature has been notably recalcitrant to pass any new gun-control legislation, even after the Virginia Tech incident."

Some gun dealers, where AK-47s are concerned, are going about the business of policing themselves.

"We don't handle those kinds of weapons," said an employee at Southern Gun World on Midlothian Turnpike. "We're so close to the city of Richmond, we'd rather not see those weapons in the wrong kinds of hands."

Apparently, one fell into the wrong hands in Powhatan.
Contact Michael Paul Williams at (804) 649-6815 or mwilliams@timesdispatch.com.