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Show A4 The Salt Lake Tribune UTAH/WORLD Concealed cealed-carry permit. He compares some well-intentioned person in- his proposal to behind-the-wheel juring or killing someone accidentally. A gun-rights supporter who opposes excessive government regulation, Allison says the absolutist view that government has WeaponTraining exams for driver-license applicants. Even in the conservative, pro- Gets Look-Over gun rights House Republican @ Continued from A-1 Caucus, Garn describes support for the concept as “overwhelming.” The issue wasvetted in a recent closed-door meeting, and there were only one or two tain their education and skill levels, and comply with state law re- quiring a studentto be trained in the safe loading, unloading, storage and carrying of handguns. The Tribune investigation found some instructors were ignoring all those requirements. Whilethe association supports improved compliance with exist- dissenters. Democratic Sen. Ron Allen of Stansbury Park also is drafting legislation to require some demenstration of gun-handling competencyas part of the concealedcarry licensing process. He sug- gests his bill might be modeled after Alaska’s, where an annual target-shooting test is mandated. ing laws and increased state attention to enforcement and moni- “I just haven’t run into much opposition,” said Allen, adding that many gun-owners see lax toring, it opposes any new laws or requirements. “The main thing is, we don’t want to create a hurdle for anyone training as giving a “black eye”to responsible instructors and concealed-carry applicants. One instructor who agrees is who wants to carry a concealed weapon,” Aposhiansays. But proposed new lawsare in the works. Garn,one ofthe top leaders in the Republican-controlled Legis- Steve Allison, a martial arts expert whoalso is director of the LDSInstitute of Religion at Salt Lake Community College’s South lature, is sponsoring a bill that would require a shooting proficiency test to obtain a con- believes lack of such “live fire” practice eventually will result in Hijackers DemandRelease ers returning from Nepal. Of Militants United Nations this. They should -jintervene,” said Wakil Ahmed But uncompromising fervoris evident among some of Allison's The new instructors’ association has embraced the hard-line GOUtah!as its political and public information arm. The group has a reputationas being radical, witha motto declaring: “No compromise! No retreat! No Surrender! Not now! Not ever!” GOUtah!’s founder and spokesman, Scott Engen, previously has insisted that concealed-carry safety training is more than adequate. “The average concealedcarry permit holderis probably as capable in handling firearms as the average police officer,” he has told The Tribune. More recently, Engen has been one of the main drivers of the self-policing. But hestill stands firm on a bedrock belief that owning and carrying guns are constitutional rights that cannot be eroded by the state Legislature. Besides, Engen says,there is no need to beef up gun safety training requirements. “We cannot document a single incident in which a concealed-carry permit holder killed or shot anyone,” he says. In the accidental or wrongful gun firings that have been documented {including warning shots into a canal bank by aformer state lawmakerchasing suspected “A instructor whois con- the cerned and notin it just for money is going te require students to go to the range,” Aposhian says. But he adds the decision should be left to the discretion of instructors, not mandated by law orrule. Rules adopted several years ago bythe state Bureau of Crimiof Identification (BCI) are being revised by agency officials who recognize there are some gaps in says.“Ifwe put specific eriteria| rule, then we would have t means and the. total ci Say ththere SC'ngency officials talk about monitoring conceale| carry classes using plaincloth Utah Highway Patroi troope: They also would like to sce j; creased s and funding ( BCI, which has just two inve hit-and-run drivers), none was re- the regulations. A shootingproficiency test was lated to marksmanship, says discussed as a possible addition to “We cannot documenta pattern strongly opposed by the instructors’ group in a recent meeting with BCI and now appears un- plications each month, plus oversees bounty hunters, licens: changes. private investigators and hun dreds of gun-purchase bac ingen. of misbehavior that’s related to training ora lack thereof,” Engen says. “We just don’t see anything in the curriculum that's broken.” Aposhian agrees. “The live-fire requirement is notall it’s cracked upto be,” says the veteran instructor, who the rules. But the proposal was likely to be included in the rule 4 Firing ranges “aren't available everywhere” in the state, says BCI firearms section supervisor Joyce Carter. Requiring such practice ground checks. “Weare so short-staffed,wear mainly just putting out fires,” says Allred. Salt Lake branch, “That's great,” Allisonsays of a reasonable proficiency law. He @ Continued from A-1 no rightto pass any laws on guns is “stupid and anal.” Sunday, December26, 1999 instructors’ professional association and a vocal advocate of One of the womenfreed in the United Arab Emirates, Pooja Tyagi, said the hijackers ordered passengers to cover their eyes with their clothes. Tyagi said the slain man was knifed to death after lookingtwice at the hijackers, according to her brother-in-law, V.K. Tyagi, a Delhi University professor. Tyagi also said the hijackers spoke Hindi, but he could not makeouttheir nationality. A doctor who attended to the released hostages in New Delhi U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard id in New York: “It is not our intention to negotiate with the hostage takers.” He would not borate. Earlier Saturday, India Prime ister Atal Bihari Vajpayee his government would not bow to any hijacker demand, After receiving food and fuel in Kandahar, the hijackers issued heir first public demands, asking Muttawakil said he met two of the hijackers, the first meeting ‘withthe captors since thehorrific said they told him that twoof the hijackers spoke Kashmiri and one seemed Nepalese. Two men who were among those freed at the Al Minhad military base in the United Arab Emirates said the hijackers carried knives, hand grenades and pistols. It was unclear if there were further deaths amongthe passengers. The two freed mentoldreporters that at least two passengers were killed with knives. Indian Civil Aviation official Ravinder Gupta said one person waskilled and two injured. Earlier, the hijackers told the pilot they hadkilled four people ‘hijackers identified himself as on board and woundedfive more, ; ‘imprisoned religious leader. Mut- claimscould notbe confirmed. The plane was hijacked after ‘Ibrahim,the brotherof Azhar, the + {tawakil did not know the nation“ality of the other hijacker but he said he could have been from ‘ashmir. Muslim militant secessionists shave been waging a bitter and ‘protracted insurgency in Indian‘held Kashmir, demanding either ‘outr ight independence for the Hi‘malayan state or union with Is- : lamic Pakistan. Azhar, whotraveled to India in 1992 to help anti-Indian militants Indian officials said, but the leaving the Nepalese capital of Katmanduenroute to the Indian capital, New Delhi. The passengers included 150 Indians, eight Nepalese, one Ca- nadian, one American,four Swiss, four Spaniards, one Belgian, one Japanese, one Austrian, two French andoneItalian. Four pas- sengers were not listed by nationality. tin Kashmir, belongs to a rich slandowningfamily in Pakistan, ‘according to Indian security ‘officials. He wasarrested in 1994 by Indiansecurity in Anantnag,a small town in the insurgency-racked northern state of Jammu- Custom Drea Kashmir. He is being held in a high-security jail in Kot Bhalwal, near Jammu, the state’s winter capital. His group, the Harkat ulMujahedeen, which was formerly called Harakatul-Ansar,has tried several times to use kidnappings as a wayoffreeing him,butfailed, ‘The group is on a U.S. list of ter‘rorist organizations. The hijackers — reportedly carmed with grenades, pistols and knives — seized the plane about 40 minutes after it took off from Nepal heading for New Delhi on Fri- ALU NOW. ENa SAVE AT PL) day. It stopped in India, Pakistan, and the United Arab Emirates and was refused landing at several airports before making its latest stop in Kandahar, The plane was carrying 178 ‘passengers and 11 crew members when it took off. While the plane was refueling in the Emirates, the hijackers released 27 hostages and the dead body. Thereleased hostages told doc‘tors and officials in New Delhi ithat the slain man was Rippan ‘Katyal, who had been returning from a honeymoon in Nepal. His bride, Rachna, remained on the plane. The Times ofIndia said manyof the passengers were honeymoon: i Slippers Free Pickup No BMY Filing een Get rad oibr ‘Restrictions apply Utah Council of the Blind has since ie? 1972. more productive in the vaneless 10-767. ‘Trathera and mare -0258 LCM 4 IT’S ALL HERE FOR THE HOLIDAYS le) |
