In order to participate in the GunBroker Member forums, you must be logged in with your GunBroker.com account. Click the sign-in button at the top right of the forums page to get connected.
I thought newspapers were supposed to be impartial
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Here we go again with the Times Union, the Albany based anti-gun newspaper. It takes a little reading, but the tone is set from the start of the article, and of course they are against Ashcroft and his policy that states the Second Amendment confers on individuals the right to own firearms.
After reading the article you will find them in support of enforcing existing gun laws. The only problem is, I don't remember them ever taking a stand against any gun laws proposed by New York Demorcrats. I'm sure there is one or two they do oppose, as anti-gun people aways make sure they don't overly upset the hunting and sporting community as they might start voting to remove anti-gun legislators.
This is the same newspaper that is against arming pilots. Of course if you think it through, hijacked aircraft will be shot down by an F-16 if they fail to heed landing instructions. Never could figure out the logic on that one.
I wonder what candidates for public office they will be endorsing?
Joe Potosky
NY Sportsmen Alert
Guns and John Ashcroft
The attorney general should have thought twice about publicly interpreting the Second Amendment
First published: Saturday, July 27, 2002 - Times Union - Editorial
To no one's surprise, Attorney General John Ashcroft has set in motion a series of legal challenges based on his recent reading -- some would say revision -- of the Second Amendment. Had the attorney general given more thought to the position he enunciated -- namely, that the Second Amendment confers on individuals the right to own firearms -- he might have foreseen the consequences that are now taking place.
According to a report this week in The New York Times, defendants throughout the country are asking that gun charges against them be dismissed, citing Mr. Ashcoft's opinion on their right to own firearms. Worse, the Justice Department is now in a nearly impossible position of trying to prosecute defendants under local gun laws, even as their boss, Mr. Ashcroft, has defined a policy that calls those laws into question.
The first sign of trouble came last May, when Justice Department lawyers found themselves in the position of having to defend the District of Columbia's gun laws. Those statutes effectively prohibit possession of handguns and are considered the strictest in the nation. At the time, many observers -- this page included -- believed that Mr. Ashcroft was merely paying lip service to the concept of individual gun rights, as a sop to the gun lobby that strongly supported his nomination, while fully intending to uphold existing guns laws that are based on the more common interpretation of the Second Amendment as conferring only a collective right to own firearms.
There was good reason to conclude that Mr. Ashcroft was indeed talking out of both sides of his mouth. After all, he pledged before his Senate confirmation hearings to uphold the laws of the land, even if they ran counter to his personal beliefs.
No doubt Mr. Ashcroft feels he is doing just that on gun laws. But as the rising number of court cases show, he has in fact placed his department in an untenable position. Little wonder, then, that both gun rights advocates and supporters of tough gun control laws are upset. "The Justice Department has created a very dangerous situation that is endangering public safety and forcing Justice Department prosecutors to litigate with one hand tied behind their backs," Matthew S. Nosanchuk, a gun control advocate told the Times. A member of the libertarian Cato Institute calls Mr. Ashcroft's divided policy "bizarre."
As the nation's top law enforcement official, Mr. Ashcroft has a duty to resolve this matter in the public interest. He should disavow his attempt to rewrite the Second Amendment and stand squarely on the side of enforcing gun laws already on the books.
"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
After reading the article you will find them in support of enforcing existing gun laws. The only problem is, I don't remember them ever taking a stand against any gun laws proposed by New York Demorcrats. I'm sure there is one or two they do oppose, as anti-gun people aways make sure they don't overly upset the hunting and sporting community as they might start voting to remove anti-gun legislators.
This is the same newspaper that is against arming pilots. Of course if you think it through, hijacked aircraft will be shot down by an F-16 if they fail to heed landing instructions. Never could figure out the logic on that one.
I wonder what candidates for public office they will be endorsing?
Joe Potosky
NY Sportsmen Alert
Guns and John Ashcroft
The attorney general should have thought twice about publicly interpreting the Second Amendment
First published: Saturday, July 27, 2002 - Times Union - Editorial
To no one's surprise, Attorney General John Ashcroft has set in motion a series of legal challenges based on his recent reading -- some would say revision -- of the Second Amendment. Had the attorney general given more thought to the position he enunciated -- namely, that the Second Amendment confers on individuals the right to own firearms -- he might have foreseen the consequences that are now taking place.
According to a report this week in The New York Times, defendants throughout the country are asking that gun charges against them be dismissed, citing Mr. Ashcoft's opinion on their right to own firearms. Worse, the Justice Department is now in a nearly impossible position of trying to prosecute defendants under local gun laws, even as their boss, Mr. Ashcroft, has defined a policy that calls those laws into question.
The first sign of trouble came last May, when Justice Department lawyers found themselves in the position of having to defend the District of Columbia's gun laws. Those statutes effectively prohibit possession of handguns and are considered the strictest in the nation. At the time, many observers -- this page included -- believed that Mr. Ashcroft was merely paying lip service to the concept of individual gun rights, as a sop to the gun lobby that strongly supported his nomination, while fully intending to uphold existing guns laws that are based on the more common interpretation of the Second Amendment as conferring only a collective right to own firearms.
There was good reason to conclude that Mr. Ashcroft was indeed talking out of both sides of his mouth. After all, he pledged before his Senate confirmation hearings to uphold the laws of the land, even if they ran counter to his personal beliefs.
No doubt Mr. Ashcroft feels he is doing just that on gun laws. But as the rising number of court cases show, he has in fact placed his department in an untenable position. Little wonder, then, that both gun rights advocates and supporters of tough gun control laws are upset. "The Justice Department has created a very dangerous situation that is endangering public safety and forcing Justice Department prosecutors to litigate with one hand tied behind their backs," Matthew S. Nosanchuk, a gun control advocate told the Times. A member of the libertarian Cato Institute calls Mr. Ashcroft's divided policy "bizarre."
As the nation's top law enforcement official, Mr. Ashcroft has a duty to resolve this matter in the public interest. He should disavow his attempt to rewrite the Second Amendment and stand squarely on the side of enforcing gun laws already on the books.
"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
Comments
Email this story
Printer friendly format
Top Stories
Painful Vigil at Pa. Mine
So, Watt's the Deal?
Welcome Homeland
By Elaine S. Povich
WASHINGTON BUREAU
July 26, 2002
Washington - Attorney General John Ashcroft, appearing before Congress for the first time in months, yesterday insisted - to somewhat incredulous Democrats - that the FBI cannot use background information on gun buyers to check whether terrorists bought weapons.
Ashcroft also maintained that the administration's proposal calling on millions of Americans to report suspicious activity by their neighbors and acquaintances does not smack of Orwellian tactics that would put every American into a database that might be used against them.
House leaders are trying to scrap the proposed Operation TIPS program - Terrorism Information and Prevention System - before it starts.
In testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, Ashcroft declared that the Brady Law's background check information - which requires prospective gun purchasers to undergo a criminal background check using law enforcement records - should be used for "audit purposes only" and not to track the gun purchases of suspected terrorists.
That assertion set up a back-and-forth with Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) who sharply cross-examined Ashcroft. "You're saying that they [the gun purchase records] cannot be used to investigate whether the terrorists violated the gun laws? Is that what you're telling us?" Kennedy said.
Ashcroft responded: "The FBI does not have the authority to, under the Brady law, to use those records for criminal investigative purposes."
The point has been in dispute for some time. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), author of the Brady Law, wrote a letter to Ashcroft in December, following his last testimony the same month, saying that background-check information should be used in terrorist investigations.
Schumer and Kennedy also called on the attorney general to postpone implementation of a proposed Justice Department rule that background-check information be destroyed one day after a gun transaction. Ashcroft yesterday stood by the rule.
"He [Ashcroft] has a total blind spot," Schumer said yesterday after Ashcroft's testimony. "Every other place he wants to go after terrorists. When it comes to looking at whether they bought guns, he is saying, 'Oh, no, their right to privacy is paramount.' "
The National Instant Criminal Background Check system electronically checks law enforcement records while individuals are making gun purchases. The General Accounting Office, Congress' investigative arm, said in a report released Tuesday that destroying the records after one day does not give the FBI sufficient time to go back to check for errors.
Senators from both parties also questioned Ashcroft about the TIPS program. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) painted a picture of a tip being passed on because someone "didn't like their dog barking in the middle of the night."
Ashcroft insisted that no tip records would be maintained and that legitimate information would be handled confidentially by law enforcement agencies.
Copyright c 2002, Newsday, Inc. http://www.newsday.com/news/printedition/ny-usashc262799324jul26.story?coll=ny-news-print
"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
If I'm wrong please correct me, I won't be offended.
The sound of a 12 gauge pump clears a house fatser than Rosie O eats a Big Mac !
- Life NRA Member
"If cowardly & dishonorable men shoot unarmed men with army guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary...and not by general deprivation of constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Beware lest in your anxiety to avoid war you obtain a master. -Demosthenes
"newspapers" don't have a bias, the people who do the hireing & editing have them.
It's a Darwinian process -- those who survive the ego fights to get their bylines on stories write what gets them bylines. It's hard to write stories about good gun people, they have happy endings. So they write about the bad news endings.
After a few years, they see only the bad, and want it to go away.
No great conspiracy, just human nature and advertising pressure.
If it really bothers you, call the head person (or write them) of the largest advertiser in the paper. Tell them you were so upset after seeing the badly biased story on page whatever that you saw their and and could only think about NOT shopping there.
That's what happened when some stations had some "progun" ads or programs and that's why some stations won't touch an NRA ad. Too many little people that watch TV too much and keep their numers high will call, write,and generally raise caine until something happens.
And then, like someone on another board says "10,000 lemmings can't be wrong."
Pay your NRA dues,read and listen to the news but make up your own mind.
Wild Turkey"if your only tool is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail"
SUBMARINE SAILOR,TRUCK DRIVER,RUSTY WALLACE FAN AND AS EVERYONE SO OFTEN POINTS OUT PISS POOR TYPIST e-mail:WNUNLEY@USIT.NET