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About The Clackamas print. (Oregon City, Oregon) 1989-2019 | View Entire Issue (March 9, 1994)
Opinion Pg. 5 The Clackamas Print Wednesday, March 9,1994 The right to bear arms is infringing on public safety by Tyson Morrow The Print Editorial Staff Article two: A well-regu lated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. An unnamed juror once told syndicated columnist George F. Will that he’d voted to acquit a defendant charged with posses sion of a pistol by a felon. His reason: “The government uses them gun laws to harass people.” The man he freed was reputedly one of Missouri’s most notorious Mafia executioners. Another“good guy” sold 300 pistols off the books from his Maine gunshop and sabotaged the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearm’s (ATF) ability to trace guns used in crime. Federal law requires weapons dealers to keep a listing of weapons in stock - when each is received, sold and to whom. This enables the ATF to trace 30,000 guns each year for local police departments. With goodrecords, it was able to trace the revolver that John Hinckley Jr. used in 1981 to shootPresidentReagan within 16 minutes of the time the serial number was turned over to an ATF agent. Without any records, the Maine dealer (who was later convicted) made a higher profit because the guns Couldn’t be traced, as did an ex-convict who resold the weapons at local tav erns. Eleven of the guns later turned up in violent crimes, in cluding three murders. In 1982 ATF inspectors found that 20 percent of the deal ers they had visited had operated in violation of the law. Admit tedly, most offenses were matters of sloppy record keeping; yet that year, 8,755 traces of guns used in a crime failed primarily because of faulty records. The ATF can’t require fingerprints on an application. Unless itcan prove thataperson is an ex-convict, a fugitive or a court certifiedmentalcase, it mustissue a license to anyone who sends in the Congressionally-approved price of $10 per year. And with just more than 600 inspectors, it- can’t possibly keep tabs on all 250,000 license holders -12,500 of whom are full-time dealers. Most license holders are, in fact, collectors and traders who like to buy and sell guns when they’re away from home. And they don’t want to be inconvenienced by hav ing paperwork done at their local gun shops. But the rules --■ ar one line ledger entry for an acquisi tion, another entry and a form for a sale -- were too burdensome for these, hobbyists, gun groups said. That still leaves us with the problems of unscrupulous deal ers who have been caught selling illegal machine guns, fencing hot goods, selling drugs and market ing “assassins’ kits” — briefcases containing pistols that are equipped with silencers and trig gered at the handle. I keep wondering why those who love to collect and trade guns don’t seem too concerned about illegal gun sales -- why don’t they root the renegades fromtheir ranks and act like good guys? In the past lOyears alone, more than 4 million Americans were assaulted, robbed or mur dered with guns. In this century alone, firearms homicides have exceeded all the battlefield deaths Americans have suffered in all wars. Does anyone think that there is no connection between guns and crime? Some say that any gun law is the first step toward na tional confiscation and a police state. But the truth is that the first step toward a police state is the formation of a police department; and the first step toward killing your neighbor is buying a gun. First steps don’t mean much. Which is why I must also laugh at the archenemy of gun lovers, those groups of people who want to ban the private ownership of guns. It’s an impossible and foolish idea. The right to bear arms is deeply ingrained in America even if ardent abolition ists scoff at the tradition. Without the right to bear arms, we might not be the United States. We might simply be a colony of Great Britain. Yet in practical terms, these gun opponents serve an un intended purpose: they give form and substance to the ominous spec ter gun organizations use to frighten their followers. By trying to ban guns they make it easier for those who own them to believe there is a sinister plan to disarm America. Rabid gun lovers and radical gun-haters are caught in a symbiotic relationship that leaves the rest of us with no champion, no voice. They perpetuate each others’ worst fears. Yet polls show that the majority of Ameri cans reject universal confiscation but accept reasonable controls. After all, gun control is what we are talking about. Since 1968 we’ve had a federal taw that allows the ATF to trace guns and lbck up felons and mentally ill people when they’re caught armed and before they kill someone else. It lets the rest of us own all the gun§ we want. We just have to buy handguns in our home state so there will be a record, accessible to local police, in case they need to prove who bought it. The law works, but if you want aggressive and effective en forcement you’ll have to stand up and say so. Congressman don’t act on the results of national polls, they react to the demands of con stituents who express their wishes in both letters and the voting booth. The issue of gun crimes really comes down to this: should Americans support the conve nience of the gun traders' hobby at the expense of public safety? The time has còme for the good guys to be heard. One group of people versus another group of people Eric C. St. Anthony, "The Handsome Prince" There’s a movement about acting punitive against the rich, or this group, or that group, or whatever. But what do raising taxes on the rich, affirmative ac tion, militant feminism and other ac-tions have in common? Their roots: class envy. Why does a group of people act so punitively against another? Why do they who haven’t succeeded at what they want to do want to make sure others don’t? Why do they who feel misery want to make us feel it too? Again, class envy. What DOES “class envy” mean? Let’s break the term down and define its parts. Webster de fines class as: “(first definition) a set or group whose members share at least one attribute; kind; (sec ond definition), a division based on Vitality or grade; (third defini tion) a social rank.” It defines envy as “discontented desire for another’s possessions or advan tages.” To put it bluntly, one group of people versus another group of people for one thing or another. Knowing that, I’ll show case some exemplary “us-vs.- them” scenarios invoking the defi nitions of class envy. First: militant feminism, invoking the first definition of class because the targets of this type of class envy are men. The radical feminsts’ goal is to irrevo cably alienate men and women from each other. Portraying men as potential rapists is one way they dothat. Second: some teachers are abolishing grading systems to “promote students’ self-esteem,” invoking the second definition of class. By dividing students based on quality of work, the lower stu dents (D’s and P’s) would get jealous of the higher students (A’s and B’s), and we wouldn’t want that now, would we? Third: the luxury tax Congress enacted as the decade began (repealed in 1992),ca prime example of class envy, invoking the third definition of class, as is often the case. This is blatant class envy at work because the politi cians that pass this tax want to appear as champions of the work ing class and, by levying a tax upon items usually identifying affluence, create a working-class pseudo-euphoria about “finally, the rich are gonna pay their fair share.” There’re more examples of class envy than I’ ve time to ex plain, invoking the three defini tions of class I’ve used in devel oping an acceptable definition of class envy. Why class envy is a soci etal weapon is threefold. First, class envy is a psychological ploy. Theoldsaying“Misery loves com pany” is similar in principle. By trying to tear down those who are successful, the less-successful people feel avenged. If they can’t be successful, no one else can. It’s like the obsessive boyfriend, feel ing if he can’t have his girl, noone else can. Second, political liber als use it to attract working-class votes. A classic example is “tax ing the rich.” Thisharmful myth’s* reality is twofold: first, with the money therichpeopleeam through hard work, they, by investing in their businesses, provide jobs for people. Who pays the payroll? Second, since the rich are numerically few, they’ve little money volumetrically. The bulk of money is created, and found, in the numericaljy-greater middle class, and they’re the ones hurt in the end. Besides, the higher the taxes, the greater the loopholes. Third, it’s a euphemism for failure to create a classless so ciety, used for foisting a guilt trip on usaboutinequitiesin society so that we’ll want “faimess”and “eq uity.” But who said life was fair? All throughout civilization, there’ve been social classes in one form or another. Class envy led to the French Revolution. At that time, there were three classes, called Estates: the First, nobility; Second, clergy; and Third, most everyone else. In our society, we have social mobility, a feature few societies had/ have. Is class envy good or bad? The medieval scholar St. Thomas Aquinas’ philosophy, “Nothing is intrinsically good or evil, but its manner <jf usage lhay make it so,’* applies here. If class envy is used to improve quality of life, e.g. to improve social skills, help get a job, get better grades, etc., then it can work. But if it’s used to equate everyone to a level of misery and dependency on Government checks, then we have a problem. There are two remedies forclassenvy: Either take satisfac tion in your lot in life, what you do, or have,orwhatever, or, instead of being punitive against successful people, learn from them. They started at the bot tom, background disregarded. And if you fall short of your de sired effect, don’t give up. Try as hard, and as of ten, as you have to, through hard work, effort, determination, etc., to reach your goal; then teach others likewise. The undera chievers who try to reduce us to their level of misery gave up a long time ago. I personally, and I hope you, don’t want more misery>1 hope you want to succeed, and help others do likewise. ,v•' ■ FINAL EXAM SCHEDULE: Fall Term 12/13-12/18, Winter Term 3/14 -3/19, Spring Term 6/6 -6/11 T. Exams will be held CLASS MEETING TIME gf in the regular classroom MWF TTh MWF TTh MWF MWF MWF I TTh MWF MWF TTh Conflicts MWF TTh unless otherwise as- 1-2 1 11:30-3 2-3 8-9 8-9:30 9-TO 9:30-11 3-4 3-4:30 10-11 11-12:30 11-12 12-1 signed. If you have ^.questions, check with in- MON 8-10 2-4 4-6 10-12 12-2 Sstructor. - '2. Evening classes will TUES 8-10 10-12 2-4 4-6 12-2 have exams at the regu- WED 8-10 SJar class meeting time 12-2 2-4 4-6 10-12 g- during exam week. S<>3. Classes meeting at 7 a.m. (or other unlisted hours) may schedule the fi- 4. Classes which meet from 3 to 6 p.m. will have exams sched nal during the ‘Conflict” times or any other time that does not conflict with uled from 4 to 6 p.m. on the same day as the regularly scheduled the regular exam schedule. class.
