From: gt1111a@prism.gatech.EDU (Vincent Fox)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns
Subject: Atlanta Journal and Constitution: an excerpt...
Date: 30 Aug 92 04:53:10 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology

The AJC has a section called "Perspective", which I can only
assumes is defined as "our propaganda section". The top story in
today's (Sunday, August 30,1992) section is in big letters:
	"Rethinking nation's war on crime"

Now you would think this sounds like a Libertarian sort of title
right? Wrongo, in small letters near the bottom we find out who
wrote it:
	Ronald Goldfarb, a Washington lawyer who has written several
books about the criminal justice system, was a special assistant to
Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy in the Department of Justice.

A long-time Washington lawyer can tell us the way out of this mess?
What's he been doing the last 20 years or so? It's very poor, even as modern
advocacy journalism. But the last section is the worst:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
6. GUNS
	The words "gun control" are loaded with past political baggage.
A more apt phrase might be "domestic disarmament."

	Most Americans favor gun control, but the gun lobby has managed
to control the issue with deft politicking and emotional arguments.
Meanwhile, gun-related homicides and assaults are rising to a level
that far surpasses that of any other civilized society.

	Ross Perot was right to focus on this subject and say that we
must be prepared to take drastic law enforcement measures. Diminishing
America's arsenal will require some reasonable, temporary compromises
with civil liberties; but Americans do that now during airport searches,
without complaint or emasculation of the Bill of Rights, and we have
eliminated hijacking.

	Broad-scale domestic disarmament is not prohibited by the Second
Amendment. The Supreme Court has dealt with this constitutional claim
four times, in 1875, 1886, 1894, and 1939. Consistently, it has ruled
that the Second Amendment deals with the right of states to maintain
a militia free from interference from the federal government. The Second
Amendment never was meant to create an individual right to possess
firearms.
	
	The reality today is awesome: commonplace drive-by shootings,
schoolyard slayings, crime enforcers with Uzis. It's time for an agressive,
imaginative program for eliminating private armories of assault weapons.
The police will be powerful allies in this effort.

	A meaningful program would include a broad ban on the possession
and sale of handguns and other weapons whose sole or primary purpose is
to commit crimes; and subsequent searches, confiscations of weapons and
punishment of those illegally possessing them.

	Democrats historically have reminded the American public that
the crime problem won't go away if we don't provide jobs, foster strong
families and improve education.

	That notion remains correct.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm amazed how often now I see platforms like this presented as part
of some other article. Seems like an increasing number of editors
like the idea of making gun-owners into criminal! HJR438 doesn't
seem like such a farfetched HCI wet dream considering the number
of articles I've seen lately like the above advocating total bans,
expanding powers of police to search, and punishing citizens for mere
posession.

The AJC though is typical of many big papers these days. A lot of
the articles are random pick-ups from New York, Washington, Chicago
and other hotbeds of rational thinking. His article of course included
4 graphs showing crime stat's with sources: FBI, Handgun Control Inc.
U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Institute on Drug Abuse.
It's not clear, but if I assume that HCI gave the figures used in
the second graph, it shows a jump from 9,000 murders committed with
a handgun in 1982 to 11,500 in 1991. All charts of course start
not at zero, but at the lowest datum point, giving the misleading
impression of all steep curves of a very large change.

At least he came up with a bold new name for it:
"gun control" -> "domestic disarmament"
Kind of invites other relabeling though:
"tyranny" -> "new and improved tyranny with lemon scent" :-)

Just thought I'd share my disgust with the net.
What can I do about this kind of garbage? My letter to the editor
didn't get published last week, although I missed one day's copy.

-- 
The War on Drugs is just part of the War on the US Constitution. 
Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns,soc.culture.french