From: fcrary@ocf.berkeley.edu (Frank Crary)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns,alt.politics.clinton,alt.politics.bush
Subject: Re: Clinton's Gestapo/Plan for takeover
Date: 27 Aug 1992 18:09:37 GMT
Organization: U. C. Berkeley Open Computing Facility
NNTP-Posting-Host: headcrash.berkeley.edu

In article <27AUG92.11530738@umbc1.umbc.edu> williamf@umbc1.umbc.edu writes:
>   Geez, this nonsense is really beginning to overflow.  You guys seem to
>   have no concept of American democracy and how it works.  The idea that
>   *any* American believes that our political institutions would allow the
>   establishment of a private police force, armed to the hilt and responsive
>   only to the president, betrays an insularity thats frightening.

This sounds excatly like Clinton's proposed "National Police Force." 

They might alos be answerable to Congress, but this wouldn't help much:
Consider the problems the people of Los Angelos have with their local
police. They have direct input at Police Review Board hearings, can put
_lots_ of pressure on the Mayor and the Police Chief, etc. Even so, they
still have huge problems of police abuses. Congress (in case you have
forgoten the House Bank affair, or other similar events) is remote from
the people and not too responsive to their concerns. They certainly
wouldn't have time to deal with every local police brutality complaint.
The "best" we could hope for, in terms of oversight of the National
Police Force, would be some sort of civil service administration, that
would probably be as caring and humane as the IRS's "tax courts."

<   ...Heck, we've
>   got several federal agencies, DEA, US Customs, Secret Service and FBI that
>   are supposed to be fighting the war on crime and obviously failing at the
>   task so why not a national police force?

Those agencies do not have general law enforcement powers. The FBI (for exampe,
since know most about them) can not arrest someone, serve a warrent or 
search a house on their own. Whenever they do these things, they are
accompanied by a local police officer (who is technically the one serving
the warrent or whatever.) This way, _local_ cooperation is required and
local concerns have to be addresed. A National Police Force would bypass
this control of federal behavior.

>   I am sure, are in keeping with the wishes of urban america vs.
>   suburban gun freaks who simply don't want to share the cost of paying for
>   to solve a problem they don't see as they're own.

Interesting: Most of the gun owners I know are poor and urban, living in
such successes of government-funded "problem solving by spending money"
as Oakland, where they _need_ to own guns, for their own safety. (By the
way, the criminals they worry about got their guns illegally bypassed
all the gun control laws you seem to think help. Those laws just hinder
people like my friends from being able to defend themselves.)

>   And, about this assault weapons debate.  Are you guys in favor of raising 
>   the ban on private ownership of machine guns?

The "assualt weapons" debate has nothing to do with machine guns. Machine
guns, submachine guns and assault rifles have been heavily regulated since
1934, and new sales banned since 1986. The current debate is about an
artificial class of weapons, which _look_ dangerous, but in reality are
no more so than hunting rifles. Various supporters of gun control have
invented the term "assault weapon" and applied it to whatever guns they
want to ban. The result is public confusion (where people think the new
laws are about machine guns) and mislead support for bans of such weapons.)

By the way, since 1934, there have been only3 crimes committed using 
registered automatic weapo.All the machine gun crimes you read about
were committed with weapons (according to the LAPD) probably stolen
from the police or military, illegally manufactured or smuggled into
the country. Tell me exactly how a background check, waiting period
or even a ban on legal sales effects such sources.

                                                       Frank Crary
						       CU Boulder
						       (even though I'm
						       still using my
						       Berkeley account.)

Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns