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Anti-gun activist: It didn't happen
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Anti-gun activist: It didn't happen
I believe I am the Violence Policy Center representative to whom John Lott referred in his June 6 op-ed, "On guns, Ed Rendell can't seem to shoot straight."
In his piece, Lott presents a completely fabricated interaction between myself and Ed Rendell at a panel discussion we both participated in at the Philadelphia Bar Association in 1999 (contrary to Lott's assertion, I was the only VPC staff person present at the event).
Lott claims that Rendell "put his arm around" me and, allegedly revealing a secret plan to ban guns, said, "I just can't say publicly what we want to do, we have to take these things slowly."
This never happened. Lott made it up. Period. Moreover, I am unaware of any plan by Rendell to implement any gun control proposals that have not been discussed at length in public forums.
Lott's assertions say more about his own psyche than Rendell's well-known gun policy goals. But then again, Lott is a man who says that more guns equal less crime.
Kristen Rand
Legislative Director Violence Policy Center Washington
Health-insurance shock
Thanks Aetna US Healthcare. Your recent increase for group health insurance for retired Philadelphia police and firemen has put our insurance cost at $13,800 yearly or $1,150 monthly for husband and wife.
From our cost in May 2001, this is ONLY a 119 percent increase. You sure know how to rid your membership of the elderly.
Philadelphia police and fire retirees did NOT receive Medicare or Social Security benefits from their city jobs at retirement. We were expected to live off our pensions. Now, thanks to Aetna, decisions have to be made on how to spend our pensions: on food and not medical insurance or on medical insurance and not food.
Eugene Carroll, Philadelphia
http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/3458970.htm
"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
I believe I am the Violence Policy Center representative to whom John Lott referred in his June 6 op-ed, "On guns, Ed Rendell can't seem to shoot straight."
In his piece, Lott presents a completely fabricated interaction between myself and Ed Rendell at a panel discussion we both participated in at the Philadelphia Bar Association in 1999 (contrary to Lott's assertion, I was the only VPC staff person present at the event).
Lott claims that Rendell "put his arm around" me and, allegedly revealing a secret plan to ban guns, said, "I just can't say publicly what we want to do, we have to take these things slowly."
This never happened. Lott made it up. Period. Moreover, I am unaware of any plan by Rendell to implement any gun control proposals that have not been discussed at length in public forums.
Lott's assertions say more about his own psyche than Rendell's well-known gun policy goals. But then again, Lott is a man who says that more guns equal less crime.
Kristen Rand
Legislative Director Violence Policy Center Washington
Health-insurance shock
Thanks Aetna US Healthcare. Your recent increase for group health insurance for retired Philadelphia police and firemen has put our insurance cost at $13,800 yearly or $1,150 monthly for husband and wife.
From our cost in May 2001, this is ONLY a 119 percent increase. You sure know how to rid your membership of the elderly.
Philadelphia police and fire retirees did NOT receive Medicare or Social Security benefits from their city jobs at retirement. We were expected to live off our pensions. Now, thanks to Aetna, decisions have to be made on how to spend our pensions: on food and not medical insurance or on medical insurance and not food.
Eugene Carroll, Philadelphia
http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/3458970.htm
"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