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The Week - President Bush's State of the Union speech - this and other events are discussed
National Review, Feb 25, 2002
-- J. Joseph Curran Jr., the attorney general of Maryland and a Democrat, has declared his intention that Maryland should be the first state in the Union to outlaw handgun ownership in all but the most restricted circumstances. One of his key strategies has been to have state police build a database of all convictions in the state, for any offense at all going back to the 1960s, and then to deny gun licenses to anyone convicted of any offense punishable by more than one year in jail (for a federal offense) or more than two years (for a state offense), regardless of the actual sentence handed down in any case. Mr. Curran cast this net and pulled in . . . Donald G. Arnold, president of a neighborhood association in Baltimore, named "citizen of the year" in 2000 for his work with police in ridding the streets of drug dealers. In 1969, Mr. Arnold spent a night in jail after a barroom scuffle -- he had been in uniform when the other party to the fight called him a babykiller -- but he has been guilty of nothing since. When he tried to renew the license for the gun he needs to carry in his work as a private detective, he was turned down. "One of the big problems today with our law is we've broken down the distinction between a felony and a misdemeanor," opined a state senator. Not to mention the difference between plain common sense and blinkered fanaticism.
-- On January 16, Peter Odighizuwa opened fire at the Appalachian School of Law in Grundy, Va., killing a dean, a professor, and a student before being "tackled" (New York Times) / "pounced on" (Washington Post) / "wrestled to the floor" (London Guardian) by four male students, whose actions almost certainly prevented further deaths. That, at least, was the story in the major news outlets. Actually, "tackling," "pouncing," and "wrestling" alone didn't do it: Two of the rescuers, Mikael Gross and Tracy Bridges, were armed with guns they had kept in their cars. "I aimed my gun at him," Bridges says, "and Peter [the assailant] tossed his gun down. Ted [Besen] approached Peter, and Peter hit Ted in the jaw. Ted pushed him back and we all jumped on." Writing in the New York Post, John R. Lott Jr. notes that only four stories even mentioned the rescuers' guns; in 72 accounts, the rescue is bowdlerized as tackling/pouncing/wrestling. Reporters were scrupulous, however, in describing the gun of the attacker as "a .380 semiautomatic handgun" (Times), "a .380-caliber semiautomatic pistol" (Los Angeles Times), and so on. The way the media tell it, you'd think they wanted guns to only ever be used by the bad guys. When the gun- control measures they sponsor are passed, they will be.
-- Departing surgeon general David Satcher is urging Americans to take up arms against obesity, which may soon overtake smoking as the leading preventable cause of death. A Satcher report focused on school-lunch offerings and physical-education programs, but with media attention shifting from Big Tobacco to Big Food, the trial lawyers and legislators are already circling. Kelly Brownell of Yale University favors a "twinkie tax" on chips, candy, Big Macs, and the like; and the Center for Science in the Public Interest wants to discourage couch potatoes with "a 5 percent tax on new televisions and video equipment." Why stop there, however? Stress, substance abuse, social maladjustment, and poverty all correlate with higher rates of illness, so how about special penalties for Type-A personalities, addicts, loners, and the poor? We could then move to subsidize breakfast, marriage, regular vacations, and prayer -- all of which are thought to contribute to a longer lifespan. What's depressing, of course, is that it would be perfectly in character for the social engineers to take ideas like these seriously. Then again, according to scientists at the University of Maryland, another thing that may make you live longer is frequent laughter. So the next time you see a liberal worrywart, thank him.
