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.