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Show 2S&1S Mw ADDQmt Sit? T"T TO '",: i'-b- V ' O y T1TTY17TTTTTTl.TTn: Since President Reagan was shot, explicit photographs and films of that incident in-cident and others from the past involving political figures have been shown. Do you think these acts of violence should be viewed by the public? Joshua Bratt Yes, although discretion should be used by the media. I feel that it PageA2 :,', Thursday pril 9, 1981 lEdlnttopipfiall . I I public scrutiny will check the situation. No simple solutions to violence , but gun control is a start When John Hinckley wounded President Ronald Reagan and three other men last week, he did more than fire off a series of six .22 calibre bullets. He also triggered the predictable accusations and breast-beating cliches from newspapers pSndj television to explain the problem of violence in our society. Why was President Reagan shot? It's a multiple-choice question in which all the1 answers seem correct. He was shot because (a) we're a sick, violent society; (b) we've lost the moral fiber of family and church; (c) we haven't banned guns; (d) we don't lock criminals up and throw away the key; (e) our movie and TV entertainment is pre-occupied with violence; - or (f) omnipresent TV news crews encourage public acts , of violence. All of these attitudes reflect real problems, but none of them is an answer; The most useless response of all is the self-flagellating impulse to moan long and loudly about what a violent, perverted society we are. "There has never been a meaner society than the United States today," wrote news columnist Bob Greene last week.. "Think of all the barbaric nations and all the years of the world's history. None of them are worse than us." Apparently then, America ranks lower on the moral scale than Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia, the Asia of Genghis Khan, and the brutal medieval societies of Europe's Middle Ages. If America has a monopoly on sickness, what then of the Third World countries where coups and torture chambers are a way of life or of Europe, where terrorists assassinate Olympic athletes, and the premier of Italy can be kidnapped and killed by a band of radicals? The United States is a deeply disturbed society, but it serves no purpose to bemoan the fact and then make no effort to understand why we are disturbed. The other "simple solutions" may sound good in an editorial, but they don't stand up to scrutiny. Our entertainment is a convenient scapegoat whenever a national figure is shot. It's especially appropriate in this case, since Hinckley may have shot the president out of unrequited love for actress Jodie Foster, whose "Taxi Driver" film dwelled on political assassination. But censorship of violence (like that of pornography) runs the risk of supressing artistic freedom. It is also easy to point the finger at the ever-present news camera, which promises the would-be gunman that TV stardom is his if only he can squeeze a trigger. Bui once again, what do you do without stumbling oyer that annoying little statute called the First Amendment? The problem is difficult, but to begin with, we can pass laws regulating the sale and use of handguns. Another " easy answer? Certainly it could be, but we have to . remember that gun control is not the whole answer to the problem, but only the tentative start in a long, hard process. Look at it this way. We may have no "simple j solution" to explain the individual psychopath, but any fool ' knows the first step is to keep him away from sharp objects. ; A gun control law offers no guarantees. We have to take j into account the influence of the "gun culture" in American 1 history. Unlike other countries where gun control laws are ; effective (England, Japan), America has gone through a relatively recent settling-and-civilizing process. We're a young country, we've grown up fast, and our wild youth may not be so easy to forget. But it is encouraging to note that Canada has had a stringent gun control law since 1934. According to a Salt Lake Tribune editorial, their homicide rate is about one quarter of ours, and while 63 of homicides in the U.S. are committed with handguns, only 8.22 in Canada are committed with that weapon. Once again, gun control legislation is being proposed in i Washington. Sen. Ted Kennedy, who lost his brothers to assassins, and Rep. Peter Rodino are sponsoring a bill to ban cheap handguns.require a prison sentence for crimes committed with a handgun, and provide a waiting period to buy a handgun! . Another alternative would be to institute these controls at a state level. If "registering your gun is just like registering 1 your car," why shouldn't it be a role of the state? This would remove the federal involvement that so often acts as ; a red flag for advocates of the right to bear arms. The time is ripe for us to actually, seriously, genuinely consider a method of gun control. A Gallup Poll taken last January shows 592 of the respondents were in favor of stricter laws on the sale of handguns. Gun control may be like other "noble experiments" that have failed. But like Prohibition, it can be repealed if it does fail. : So far, cliches and hand-wringing have not saved us. It is time to give gun control a chance, ' - 4 RB TIM i r! 1ti wrmmt m - SECMHAOESUNIS READY ID RISE WHENEVER YOO ARE,,, by Stanley Karnow Speculation surrounds Reagan and the eerie 'Zero Factor' Washington A lot of superstitious Americans are buzzing about the "Zero Factor" that was mentioned in the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan. '; , The "Zero Factor" is simply the belief that every U.S. president elected in a year ending in zero will die in office. Reagan, of course, was elected in 1980. The "Zero Factor'.' is also called "Tecumseh's Curse." The superstition can be traced directlyjo a Seminole Indian chief named Teriimseh. Gen. William Henry Harrison defeated the Indian chief at the Battle of Tippi-canoe. Tippi-canoe. Tecumseh, it is said, then laid a curse on the general. Harrison was elected president in 1840, but died one month after taking office. Since then, "Tecumseh's Curse" has supposedly claimed the lives of Presidents Presi-dents Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield. Gar-field. William McKinley, Warren Harding, Hard-ing, Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy Ken-nedy all of whom were elected in years ending in zero. Skinning the Cat: Ronald Reagan has set out to skin a bureaucratic cat with nine lives. But he may get scratched in the process. The White House is proposing to shut down a key federal anti-poverty program pro-gram and fire all its employees by Oct. 1. , The agency was first called the Office vi uuuuuiiiii: uppui tunny. 11 waa uic centerpiece of President Lyndon Johnson's John-son's war on poverty in the 1960s. The name has now been changed to the Community Services Administration. Administra-tion. But its budget remains high-more high-more than a half -billion dollars a year; Budget Director David Stockman thinks the agency has outlived whatever what-ever usefulness it may have had. He cpnsiders it nothing more than a haven for overpaid bureaucrats. Its role can be filled better, he believes, by creating jobs in the private sector. Stockman has already notified the agency's people to start packing. This message was delivered in the form of a memo intended for official eyes only. They were told to "begin now" to provide for "the separation of all personnel by the end of this fiscal year." This would mean the biggest mass firing of federal employees in years. It will also mean one of the biggest fights the administration has had yet with Congress. The poverty progra m has come under fire from all sides. Yet it has a reputation for leading a charmed life.. President Richard Nixon tried but failed to kill the agency. Others have had no better success. It remains to be seen whether Ronald Reagan can succeed where others have failed. The Community Services Administration Ad-ministration may not have used up all of its nine lives yet. Meanwhile, it looks as if President Reagan may pass his first economic test. He wants to remove the shackles from business, which he believes would be the best way to stimulate the economy. . '. His first major move was to decontrol oil prices. He contended that the free market would keep prices from soaring out of sight. But he no sooner signed the decontrol order than the price of gasoline shot up. Many motorists, responded by driving less. This added to the gasoline glut that had already started to accumulate. The result is that gas prices have tapered off. Several gas stations have actually reduced prices. But the free enterprise system unfortunately un-fortunately doesn't operate at the other end of the oil pipeline. The oil producers have rigged the world price, which they keep pushing up. Some smaller American oil dealers therefore have been caught in a squeeze. They may pay more for their oil but charge less for their gasoline. Some distributors are now selling gaso-. line at a loss, ptherwise, they would have to shut down and go out of business. And that's exactly what sevi eral small refiners will likely do this year. United Feature Syndicate, Inc. - ' fa 1 S" f ' - - - Max Hobbs Yes, in order to keep the people informed. Susan Jager Yes, I think it should be shown, but the reptition with which it was shown bordered on sensationalism. Sharon Ahem Yes, because why should the public be sheltered? These incidents are happening, and the public should be aware of them. Peter Huestis Yes, I think they should be shown because the events involve all the American people. ,fM 5, Sheila Goldschmitt Yes, because I think people really wanted to see it, and the news ' should not be censored. mU- nVTl,.T fSMTI by Jack Anderson W VgtClitiil.y Cb ptCiCilga M & Joe Spear Asian intervention was misguided Lang Son, Vietnam This squalid hill town, located only a few miles from the border of China, has not been rebuilt since Chinese forces destroyed, much of it two years ago.. The Vietnamese apparently ap-parently preserve the ruins in order to show foreign visitors the evidence of aggression by their northern neighbors. As an American, however, I see an especially tragic story in the rubble. For it brings to mind the ignorance behind the policy to involve the United States in the Vietnam war. Starting with Harry Truman, successive suc-cessive presidents escalated the American commitment to Southeast Asia on the theory that Communist China had to be "contained." The commitment began with support for France's futile attempt to retain its colonial hold in Indochina, and it grew after the Vietnamese Communists gained control over North Vietnam. What these decisions lacked, though, was any appreciation of a basic reality. The Communist-led Vietnamese nationalists were not Chinese pawns, but China's traditional enemies. Their aim has always been, as it is now, to check Chinese ambitions. Thus the United States, in its effort to restrain China, backed the wrong side. The mistake was costly. During this extraordinary trip, I have interviewed numbers of Vietnamese officers of-ficers and political figures on the history of their relationship with China. Allowing for predictable propaganda, their accounts are fascinating and instructive. They admit that they might never have defeated the French without Chinese Communist help. After 1949, when China fell to the Communists, the Chinese furnished the Vietnamese with modern weapons and advisers as well as sanctuaries. Four years later, they could not have beaten France in the decisive battle of Dien Bien Phu without Chinese heavy artillery. But China's attitude shifted during the Geneva Conference of 1954, which met to end the French conflict. The Chinese then were seeking to project an image of moderation on the global scene. They also favored a fragmented Southeast Asia over which they could Newspaper exert influence. And, having recently sustained devastating losses in the Korean war, they were reluctant to antagonize an-tagonize the United States. , . . ,.t, As a result, they worked out a compromise com-promise at Geneva under which the Vietnamese Communists, despite their victory over the French, were compelled com-pelled to settle for only half of their objective ob-jective and accept a Vietnam divided at the 17th parallel. It had always intrigued me why the Vietnamese Communists did not continue con-tinue their combat rather than go along with that disappointing deal. The reason, according to one prominent Vietnamese, was that the Chinese threatened to cut off their military aid. Under the terms of the Geneva accords, ac-cords, elections were scheduled for 1956 to reunify Vietnam. But the United States and the South Vietnamese government rebuffed the exercise, and the Vietnamese Communists got little sympathy from China. Indeed, they claim, Chinese leader Mao Tse-tung advised patience, telling them: "The partition of Vietnam cannot be solved quickly. It may take a long time." Currently dependent on the Soviet Union, the Vietnamese are silent about Moscow's role in those days. But the Russians also gave them short shrift, since Premier Nikita Krushchev then was seeking a rapprochement with President Eisenhower. Because of geography, however, the Vietnamese needed, China more as the United States intensified the war. They assert, though, that the Chinese repeatedly betrayed them. They reveal, for example, that China reneged on a pledge to send them pilots after the United States began bombing North Vietnam in 1964. Later, they contend, con-tend, China cut its aid in order to penalize them for opening negotiations with the Johnson administration. In their view, China wanted the conflict con-flict to continue, and, in the process, ultimately weaken both America and Vietnam. Or as one Vietnamese put it: "The Chinese were prepared to fight to the last Vietnamese." The biggest blow, of course, came when Mao welcomed Richard Nixon to Peking in early 1972. At that stage, the Vietnamese submit, the Chinese were eager for a bargain. They would lean on the Vietnamese to agree to a cease-fire in exchange for ajr-omjse.by .xoiv.tp withdraw U.S. forces from Taiwan, ; The two issues in fact were linked during the Nixon trip. Moreover, for; mer Secretary of State Henry Kissinget has estimated that Nixon's visits to Peking and Moscow in 1972 persuaded the Vietnamese Communists to make concessions. 2 Following the cease-fire, the Viett namese add, the Chinese warned thenJ against trying to unify Vietnam soon; Fresh outbreaks might bring the Americans back into the region and damage China's new ties with the United States. : The dispute worsened in 1974, whert the Chinese grabbed potentially oil-rich areas in the China Sea that were claimed by Vietnam. The quarrel reall j heated up, though, over Cambodia. y Precisely who did what to whom and when still is murky. My guess is tha China, determined to curb Vietnam's sway over Indochina, pushed the Pol Pot faction of the Khmer Rouge int$ resisting Vietnamese control The Viet namese invaded Cambodia, and the Chinese retaliated by sweeping into this and other nearby towns in late 1978. ; They stayed only briefly, blowing up a few blocks of buildings as they pulled out. Their mission, they announced; was to "punish" Vietnam. Except fof occasional skirmishes and the faraway rumble of artillery, the sector now ij calm. z. The conflict, fortunately, is none of America's business. Yet, for afl American spending a grimy weekend here, the thoughts it evokes ar5 poignant. ; They dramatize the extent to which" U.S. intervention in this part of th world, prompted as it was by th& presumed necessity to stop China; could not have been more misguided; And it may be that other such crusades currently being launched, also arc founded on similar illusions that could; like the Vietnam war, turn out to be exj pensive blunders. i (Released by The Register and! Tribune Syndicate, 1981) ; Subscription Kates, iff a year in Summit County. $12 a year outside Summit County Published hv Ink. Inc. tsps ;!7x-;:s(i Publisher Jan Wilking MHur Kettina Moench Advertising Sales ja Wilking. Kill Dickson General Manager , Terry llogan Business Manager Kirk i.amnan Graphics Keckv V idenhouse. I.iz lleimos Reporters , David Hampshire. 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