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Gun Demilitarization Scheme Dead

Josey1Josey1 Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
edited December 2001 in General Discussion
Gun Demilitarization Scheme Dead
Subject: Gun Demilitarization Scheme Dead From: nealknox@nealknox.com (Neal Knox) Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 11:43:43 EST
Dec. 12 Neal Knox Update -- Sec. 1062 of the Defense Authorization bill, the provision allowing any "significant military weapon" -- including all guns ever owned by the U.S. Government -- to be recalled or ordered destroyed, has been completely removed by House-Senate Conference Negotiators. Yesterday, the chairman of the House Armed Service Committee, Bob Stump (R-Ariz.), called to say he "had fixed that." I had told my wife that he would be calling, and the two items to ask him about if he called while I was out. Not until nearly midnight did I learn that Bob had gotten it taken it out completely. That's what I'd asked him to do nearly two months ago because Sec. 1062 was so bad it was unfixable. Most of the 51 members of the conference didn't see the bill, negotiated by only the chairman and ranking member of each house committee, until late yesterday. They are expected to finish up any wrangling this week and vote early next week. The contentious issue is a round of base closings, which has caused the long delay. Some of the near-hysterical hype that's been on the internet said the bill required destruction of former government arms, vehicles and planes. But it would have allowed a future administration to do it -- I can't imagine this one issuing such an order. Now we've got to find out where within the Defense Department this scheme came from, for the second year in a row, and see to it that he or she is dismissed or transferred to Lower Soblovia.
The Supreme Court agreed Monday to consider whether judges, or only juries, can decide whether a convicted person can receive an enhanced sentence for "using" a gun in a crime. That's good, for there have been cases of judges having branded mere possession of a firearm as having triggered longer sentences, even if it had nothing to do with the offense -- potentially someone could be hammered for having a skeet gun in his closet while faking his income taxes. Conversely, other judges have treated criminals leniently who had a gun, or even displayed it during a violent crime, but didn't pull the trigger.
It's a good thing that Elizabeth Dole, the Republican establishment's choice to replace Jesse Helms as North Carolina senator, has furiously back-pedaled from the anti-gun positions she touted during her quickly aborted Presidential campaign. She's likely to win. She's showing 62 percent support for the nomination, according to an Elon University poll.. None of the other announced Republican candidates, which includes gun activist Dr. Jim Parker of Lumberton and a former Charlotte mayor who proudly drove a steamroller over a bunch of guns, are showing over 2 percent support. And if the election were held today Dole would get about 60 percent of the vote, even against well-known anti-gun former Clinton Chief Erskine Bowles, who drew 13 percent. Early polls like this one measure primarily name identification, but that kind of lead -- backed by a guaranteed well-funded campaign -- is almost impossible to beat.
The New York Times weighed in on the criticism of Michael Bellesiles originally much-touted book, "Arming America," saying over the weekend that many scholars are saying "it could be one of the worst academic scandals in years." Bellesiles, an Emory University history prof whose book bore the jacket blurb "'This is the N.R.A.'s worst nightmare," has won the history world's highest honors for purportedly showing that there was no "gun culture" prior to the Civil War, that there were few working guns in the general populace the late 1800's, and that therefore the Second Amendment couldn't have meant what gun rights scholars claim it does. As the Times noted, Bellesiles has come up with an astonishing number of feeble excuses to explain blatant errors and distortions in his book, even claiming that demonstrably false information on his web page was put there by hackers trying to embarrass him. Even some of his colleagues at Emory, the Times said, doubt that story. Although quoting historians who would like Bellesiles' thesis to be true, The Times never mentions the historian and computer programmer who began uncovering the fraud, Clayton Cramer. I know a good computer programmer who needs a job.
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