Boston Globe Columnist Calls For More Gun Control

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http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/08...s_bluff+.shtml

Gun Control Forces Should Call Bush's Bluff
by Derrick Z. Jackson, Boston Globe Staff, 3/28/2001


ANOTHER SCHOOL shooting and the gun-control advocates and opponents are again on opposite banks of the river of blood. The White House has turned its back on the riddled bodies floating downstream as the other side shouts and points down at the river, dismissed as village idiots.


After Columbine and the Million Mom March, it seemed that the forces for more sane gun restrictions were gaining strength in Congress. Now, with President Bush acting as a courtier to the National Rifle Association, there is suddenly no debate at all.


After three school shootings in his first two months in office which killed two students and wounded 20 people, Bush has reduced the problem to a vague wish for values.


''When America teaches her children right from wrong and teaches values that respect life in our country, our country will be better off,'' Bush said. He said nothing about guns.


Bush's education secretary, Rod Paige, said America's children need ''character education.'' As for guns, Paige said, ''We think just focusing on guns is much too narrow; it's beyond guns. The guns may be the instrument of the violence, but they're not the cause of the violence.''


Attorney General John Ashcroft said that violent video games and violent media fuel an ''ethic of violence.'' But when it came to the most violent object in America - a gun - Ashcroft said, ''Gun laws ... alone aren't going to solve the problem.''


The Bush strategy of treating school shootings as if a gun was never fired is working. The media have been diverted into ''values'' investigations on bullying or tattling. Gun-control Democrats have nearly censored themselves for fear of being written off as village idiots. Virtually no major Democrat called for a renewed debate on gun control after Santee.


This cannot possibly last. The very thing that is working for Bush now ultimately will fail. His denial about guns today will result in more school shootings tomorrow. Deep down, Americans know this. The majority of Americans want tighter gun restrictions. The question is whether gun control advocates can tap into that feeling before another Columbine.


In the spirit of having nothing to lose - village idiots usually have nothing to lose - gun control forces should call Bush's bluff. Give him credit, tons of credit, on the things they can. Give him so much credit that if Bush does not respond with humble compromise, he will be exposed as a heartless slave of the NRA.


Tell Bush that, yes, we agree. Values do matter. Yes, Mr. Ashcroft, we're with you about video games and the media. So do your job. Work with Congress to establish strict standards for violent video games. Demand that guns and bloody bodies cannot appear on early-evening prime time television. Tell the networks to get rid of violent ads for first-run movies during the Super Bowl.


Mr. Bush, you are absolutely right when you say, ''We all have a duty to watch for and report troubling signs.'' So take back that $1.6 trillion tax cut meant to boost sales at strip malls and instead spend it on reducing class size. Spend it on expanding high school extra-curricular activities.


Mr. President, you say, ''My job is to say to the moms and dads of America, `Your most important job is to love your children with all your heart and all your soul.'''


What gun control advocate would disagree? So use your power to make that job easier. Take the $1.6 trillion and instead of giving Americans a chance to buy more TVs to baby-sit their kids, spend it on a for-real, paid family leave such as the one they have in Western Europe, not this jive American leave which only grants you the right to slash your family's income in half and risk demotion when you go back to work.


See, Mr. President, we have some common ground. There is an ''ethic of violence.'' As you say, when someone takes a gun and shoots someone it is an ''act of cowardice.''


But now, Mr. President, we came your way on values, what about the guns? You say our most important job as moms and dads is to love our children.


Mr. President, what is your most important job? To help the moms and dads, or the NRA?


Derrick Z. Jackson's e-mail address is jackson@globe.com.
You can E-Mail the Editor at the Boston Globe at letter@globe.com and express your opinion.

Let them know that gun control laws don't keep guns out of the hands of criminals. The school shootings he discusses are in states that already have the most strict gun laws in the country. We already have enough laws and the school shooters broke many of them. Many lives were saved in some where legally armed citizens or off duty cops stopped the shooter. Polls show most people want better enforcement of current laws and more child education and prevention programs rather then more gun control.

[Bam Bam]

...Gun Owning Nut Calls for Less Boston Globe Columnists...

Seriously, with all the disrepute that paper's columnists have suffered how can anyone take that drivel seriously? The guy is an idiot. Bush, Ashcroft, Paige, and tens of millions have indeed properly diagnosed the problem as a crisis of values and "Lord of the Flies" writ large. There is no "diversion" except the sleight of hand offered up by Hollywood apolagists and crypto-communist columnists aka Marxist Media Mo'Fo's.

Time for some email!!

Oh yeah, the best way for parents to love their children is to teach them right and wrong and how to handle power and responsibility...like working, driving, paying bills on time, and knowing how to defend yourself and loved ones!

[Mike Irwin]

And we're surprised how?

The Boston Globe is the self-avowed "leftist" newspaper in the United States. Their editorial staff reads like an old hippies acid party.

What this fool doesn't realize is that the Democratic Party's push for gun control was in large part responsible for the Republicans WINNING traditionally Democratic strongholds such as West Virginia.

For Christ's sake, gun control was one of the big reasons why Al Gore suffered the HUMILIATION of losing not only the former President's home state, but his own home state of Tennessee.

So yes, by all means, PLEASE Democrats, call Bush's bluff!

[Adventurer_96]

Mr. Jackson:

This evening I read your recent piece regarding gun control. I felt that I had reason to respond, despite the fact that I no longer reside in the Commonwealth as it addresses an issue facing not just Massachusetts but the nation as a whole.

Too often people who oppose positions taken by such organizations as Handgun Control, Inc. are characterized as "gun nuts" on the fringe of society, whose views are so askew with the norm that they are to be ridiculed and ignored. I would like to refute this by making a few simple points in response to your article.

I found it to be a refreshing change that the discussion in the media focused on the root problems of the recent events in California, Pennsylvania and other states. For the most part, there was not an immediate cry for "more gun laws," demonizing an inanimate object for the actions of a few. Perhaps this is why the President said nothing about guns, and Attorney General Ashcroft made the statements he did regarding existing gun laws.

What I find to be the most interesting point made continuously by several acquaintances yet rarely by the media is that guns are today more difficult to obtain as a minor than ever before in the history of the nation. There are age restrictions on purchasing a firearm. These are established both at the state and federal level. If guns are so much more difficult to obtain by a minor than even a few years ago, then why the increase in violence in our schools? Perhaps there is more to this issue than simply restricting legal ownership of firearms by law-abiding citizens. One does not hear a call for a ban on Ford Escorts because a reckless driver uses one as a weapon. Instead, individual culpability is the norm.

You ask if the President is out to "help the moms and dads, or the NRA?" You would be surprised how many of those "moms and dads" make up the NRA. Using them as an example, they have seen their ranks swell in recent years in response to the endless stream of legislation on the part of the gun control lobby at the state and federal level. Beyond just the NRA are the millions of firearms owners who see what they view as their rights being put on the line more and more often as the news reports call for more gun control legislation to stop the onslaught of violence and crime in our society. These recent shootings in California, and the Wakefield shootings in Massachusetts, occurred in states with the most restrictive gun laws in the country. The laws did not prevent them from taking place. Perhaps this recent swing in public opinion which you describe as keeping the gun control lobby silent regarding calls for more "gun laws" is merely the indication that the gun control lobby is finding itself on the fringe of society...

While we will undoubtedly agree to disagree, I felt obliged to send this note to point out that the call for tighter gun restrictions in the wake of these recent events is not the fix which the country is seeking. Focus on the children, focus on what drove these teens to their actions. There, we might find a solution, but not in the gun control issue.




I sent this after reading this piece, sometimes I regret being stationed out of Mass. since I can't be on the "front lines" of the debate!

[Christopher II]

Oooh, look, a neo-socialist!

Jeez, Mr. Jackson hit gun control, taxes, mandantory family leave, violent movies, video games, government school class size, and "family values," all in the same article. Impressive.

Can you even imagine how depressing it would be to live in Mr. Jackson's world? It never ceases to amaze me that these neo-socialist intellectual midgets still get taken seriously.

Later,
Chris

[Elker_43]

Adventurer_96 -
A very good rebuttal to a piece of garbage editorial. With these letters such as you wrote, maybe these libs will eventually get the message....But I doubt it.

Good work Adventurer_96.