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The parade of disarmament marches on
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
The parade of disarmament marches on
The July 22 headline read: "Rise in gun crimes stuns Europeans."
Following the killing of eight politicians at a city council meeting outside Paris in March; the assassination of Dutch libertarian leader Pim Fortuyn May 6; and a typically pathetic Gallic attempt to assassinate French President Jacques Chirac on Bastille Day, "Europeans are wondering if more must be done to control weapons," Thomas Wagner reported for The Associated Press in London.
"Everyone is asking ... How do such attackers suddenly appear on our streets with guns or rifles?" asks Ragis Verley of the European newspaper Quenzin.
Um, by walking out their front door, perhaps?
The problem in all these cases -- and especially when a lone gunman can take out eight city council members -- is not so much that the felons were armed (since all men have a God-given right to bear arms), of course, as the fact that their intended victims were dis-armed.
To respond by asking whether "more must be done to control weapons" is like responding to reports that many 18th century patients were dying after being bled by their doctors, by declaring, "We must redouble our efforts to purge these poor souls of their evil humours by bleeding them not of mere pints of blood, but of quarts! quarts!"
Civilian death rates climb when the taxpaying class is effectively disarmed, while the two criminal classes that surround us -- free-lance bandits and government agents -- continue to pack heat. We saw it in Hitler's Germany, we saw it in Stalin's USSR, we saw it in Pol Pot's Cambodia, and now Western Europe seems determined to give it another try.
Meantime, it's no secret there are many who'd like to see us go down the same road here at home. So I was a little concerned (also July 22) to spot the first poster for the new 385-GUNS anonymous turn-in-a-gun-owner hot line in the window of my local Mini-mart here in Las Vegas.
"Illegal guns can take over your neighborhood but so can you," the new posters proclaim, above the logos of both Metro and the federal BATF. Dial "385-GUNS, Anonymous Hotline to rid your neighborhood of illegal firearms," the poster then advises, beneath a staged photo of a young man -- we see only his back from butt to shoulders -- watching five schoolchildren playing soccer in a playground. In the small of his back, clearly visible tucked into his waistband, the watcher carries a semiautomatic pistol.
Is this a reflection of the availability of new federal gun seizure funds under Project Exile, since renamed Project Safe Streets?
I called the number and was briskly transferred to Lt. Robert "Bobby" Duvall of Metro firearms.
"No, it's completely funded by our department," Lt. Duvall replied.
How about the gun specifically shown in the poster, I asked. It's being carried in a clearly visible fashion, and "open carry" was legal in Nevada the last time I checked -- only "concealed carry" requiring a permit. What's illegal about the specific gun in the poster?
"It's not," the lieutenant was frank enough to admit. "It's the implication, the possibility that armed criminals might be in our playgrounds. We're not after legal guns; we're after illegal guns."
But isn't there a risk that some folks -- especially newcomers arriving in Las Vegas from pathetic nests of disarmed bedwetters like California and Chicago -- will get the impression they should call if they see any gun, that any gun must be illegal?
When a call comes in about someone with a gun, "The first thing we ask any tipster is why is it illegal; is there some reason that this person's not supposed to have this gun? It's because sometimes they're juveniles, or gang members. Now a gun on school grounds is illegal, for instance."
(Which is why we have school shootings, while Israel does not -- Israeli teachers and parent chaperones are encouraged to pack heat.)
"But yes, you're right, open carry is legal in Nevada," The lieutenant replied. "On this particular poster ... it's not so much that this specific gun is illegal; but our point is if you feel you've seen an illegal gun, call us, let's at least start it with a call."
But I can still carry a gun openly on my hip in Las Vegas, right?
"Yeah, you can carry it in the open. Now someone may be concerned and they may call, and a gun call is probably going to be investigated by Metro officers. They're going to go out there and they may ask him some questions. But if it's legal to possess the weapon, then it's legal.
"Our most common objective in this unit has been the felons with guns, the ex-felon with firearms, and juveniles illegally possessing firearms. ... There's a line to cross there; there are times when a juvenile can have a gun under adult supervision, and there are other times when it can be a crime ..."
The larger question, of course, is whether law-abiding citizens are being shamed and intimidated out of going armed, leaving felons to feel just as free to go about their nefarious trade as if carrying a gun were illegal (since the risk of a potential victim being armed is all that really stops them -- as the soaring crime rates in recently disarmed Britain and Australia show.)
In the real world, if you're going to be surrounded and questioned by nervous officers every time you try to exercise a right, what does it mean to say you still have that right ... really?
Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Review-Journal and author of the books "Send in the Waco Killers" and "The Ballad of Carl Drega." For information on his books or his monthly newsletter visit Web site www.privacyalertonline.com.
http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2002/Jul-28-Sun-2002/opinion/19245072.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
The July 22 headline read: "Rise in gun crimes stuns Europeans."
Following the killing of eight politicians at a city council meeting outside Paris in March; the assassination of Dutch libertarian leader Pim Fortuyn May 6; and a typically pathetic Gallic attempt to assassinate French President Jacques Chirac on Bastille Day, "Europeans are wondering if more must be done to control weapons," Thomas Wagner reported for The Associated Press in London.
"Everyone is asking ... How do such attackers suddenly appear on our streets with guns or rifles?" asks Ragis Verley of the European newspaper Quenzin.
Um, by walking out their front door, perhaps?
The problem in all these cases -- and especially when a lone gunman can take out eight city council members -- is not so much that the felons were armed (since all men have a God-given right to bear arms), of course, as the fact that their intended victims were dis-armed.
To respond by asking whether "more must be done to control weapons" is like responding to reports that many 18th century patients were dying after being bled by their doctors, by declaring, "We must redouble our efforts to purge these poor souls of their evil humours by bleeding them not of mere pints of blood, but of quarts! quarts!"
Civilian death rates climb when the taxpaying class is effectively disarmed, while the two criminal classes that surround us -- free-lance bandits and government agents -- continue to pack heat. We saw it in Hitler's Germany, we saw it in Stalin's USSR, we saw it in Pol Pot's Cambodia, and now Western Europe seems determined to give it another try.
Meantime, it's no secret there are many who'd like to see us go down the same road here at home. So I was a little concerned (also July 22) to spot the first poster for the new 385-GUNS anonymous turn-in-a-gun-owner hot line in the window of my local Mini-mart here in Las Vegas.
"Illegal guns can take over your neighborhood but so can you," the new posters proclaim, above the logos of both Metro and the federal BATF. Dial "385-GUNS, Anonymous Hotline to rid your neighborhood of illegal firearms," the poster then advises, beneath a staged photo of a young man -- we see only his back from butt to shoulders -- watching five schoolchildren playing soccer in a playground. In the small of his back, clearly visible tucked into his waistband, the watcher carries a semiautomatic pistol.
Is this a reflection of the availability of new federal gun seizure funds under Project Exile, since renamed Project Safe Streets?
I called the number and was briskly transferred to Lt. Robert "Bobby" Duvall of Metro firearms.
"No, it's completely funded by our department," Lt. Duvall replied.
How about the gun specifically shown in the poster, I asked. It's being carried in a clearly visible fashion, and "open carry" was legal in Nevada the last time I checked -- only "concealed carry" requiring a permit. What's illegal about the specific gun in the poster?
"It's not," the lieutenant was frank enough to admit. "It's the implication, the possibility that armed criminals might be in our playgrounds. We're not after legal guns; we're after illegal guns."
But isn't there a risk that some folks -- especially newcomers arriving in Las Vegas from pathetic nests of disarmed bedwetters like California and Chicago -- will get the impression they should call if they see any gun, that any gun must be illegal?
When a call comes in about someone with a gun, "The first thing we ask any tipster is why is it illegal; is there some reason that this person's not supposed to have this gun? It's because sometimes they're juveniles, or gang members. Now a gun on school grounds is illegal, for instance."
(Which is why we have school shootings, while Israel does not -- Israeli teachers and parent chaperones are encouraged to pack heat.)
"But yes, you're right, open carry is legal in Nevada," The lieutenant replied. "On this particular poster ... it's not so much that this specific gun is illegal; but our point is if you feel you've seen an illegal gun, call us, let's at least start it with a call."
But I can still carry a gun openly on my hip in Las Vegas, right?
"Yeah, you can carry it in the open. Now someone may be concerned and they may call, and a gun call is probably going to be investigated by Metro officers. They're going to go out there and they may ask him some questions. But if it's legal to possess the weapon, then it's legal.
"Our most common objective in this unit has been the felons with guns, the ex-felon with firearms, and juveniles illegally possessing firearms. ... There's a line to cross there; there are times when a juvenile can have a gun under adult supervision, and there are other times when it can be a crime ..."
The larger question, of course, is whether law-abiding citizens are being shamed and intimidated out of going armed, leaving felons to feel just as free to go about their nefarious trade as if carrying a gun were illegal (since the risk of a potential victim being armed is all that really stops them -- as the soaring crime rates in recently disarmed Britain and Australia show.)
In the real world, if you're going to be surrounded and questioned by nervous officers every time you try to exercise a right, what does it mean to say you still have that right ... really?
Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Review-Journal and author of the books "Send in the Waco Killers" and "The Ballad of Carl Drega." For information on his books or his monthly newsletter visit Web site www.privacyalertonline.com.
http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2002/Jul-28-Sun-2002/opinion/19245072.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878