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Show Page 6 The Paper That Dares To Take A Stand The Utah Independent January 20, 1977 MASSACHUSETTS REJECTS BAN ON HANDGUNS Continued from page 1 voters how progressive and sophisticated they are, and how they can be the bellwethers of the nation by voting for this or that new socialist measure. By the way, do you know what a bellwether" is? It is the castrated male sheep on whom the bell is hung, and who goes first wherever the herd is directed. So, citizens of Massa- chusetts, the next time your shepherds" pat you on the head and praise you as a bellwether, you now know what they are really calling you. Massachusetts voters were recently urged, by Liberals" all over America, to become bellwethers on November 2nd by voting yes on Proposition 5. For instance, the Minneapolis Prav-dknown in English as the Minneapolis Tribune , was among those eager to tell the folks in Massachusetts how to vote. The Milwaukee Journal (you should hear what a Swedish accent does so fittingly to the word Journal ) also pressed the point, declaring: Massachusetts voters could perform a valuable, national public service on November 2. They will decide in a referendum whether to ban private ownership of handguns. The liberd scheme of some als? No indeed. The People vs. Handguns drive is led by Middlesex County Sheriff John Buckley and Boston Police Commissioner Robert diGrazia." Such editorialists sought to convince their readers that working cops want to ban private ownership of handguns. Ignored was the fact that such a ban was opposed, on the record, by the working cops of the Massachusetts Police Association, the (Massachusetts) State Police Association, and the Boston police, as well as by the Chairman of the Massachusetts House Committee on Public Safety. The House had already trounced this radical proposal. That particular information rated three or four inches of ink on page zilch of Massachusetts newspapers. After all, it had to compete with enormous photos of radical Commissioner diGrazia calling for a ban on handguns, and invocations of the holy name of Teddy Kennedy, in advertised ments funded by a very People vs. Handguns" organization. The people werent fooled. Commissioner diGrazia has just left Boston (in a trailing cloud of corruption charges) for the perfect job. He will be police chief in Montgomery County, Maryland. If it sounds like a comedown, dont feel sorry for him, for he will be closer to the Washington headquarters of Fedcop and hobnobbing with the wealthy Liberals who govern us from Washington, but who dont want their youngsters in the Washington schools with all those darkies. You know the type. He knows the type. They understand each other perfectly. As for Sheriff Buckley, he is so far from being a working cop that it is laughable. At this point, even some Liberal" newspapers in the Bay State are suggesting that he clear the accumulation of work off his desk. During his crusade, he did precious little sheriffing but went about the state spinning heartrending tales of tragedy resulting from handguns tragedies which never happened! Both the Belmont and Arlington newspapers (and the Sheriff lives in Belmont) searched the record and the best they could do was to dust off perhaps a single incident which bore even the faintresemblance to what he was talking est about. Why did the Liberal" Establishment go the referendum route? Why did they actually ask the voters whether they wanted to ban the private own a, fuzzy-heade- hard-heade- d, well-heele- five-mon- th gun-grabbi- ng five-year-o- ld ership of handguns? Well, for one thing, the state legislature had balked at this mouthful. But the Liberals" had done their homework. Assorted polls had made it seem that a majority would follow the lead of people-manipulati- on their radical governor, their mass media, Teddy Kennedy, diGrazia and Buckley, and others believed to awe the populace. There was plenty of money for a media blitz. There was that terribly Liberal" voting record the electorate had compiled. And, carefully researched too, there was a determination that Massachusetts had relatively few hunters and hunting areas, and that, according to the Massachusetts Research Center, 85.8 percent of the states residents do not own a handgun. Sheriff Buckleys outfit, People vs. Handguns," took this information and ran screaming into the street with it, citing it as evidence that nearly nine out of ten people have followed Commissioner diGrazias example" and banned from their homes. My, my! If 810,000 people in Massachusetts do own handguns, in a state of under six million, it hardly means that the remainder of the population handguns has moved out of the homes of said There is another factor, too. If a pollster comes around, nowadays, and asks you whether you own a handgun, you might not necessarily tell the truth. If one in seven citizens of Massachusetts admits to having a handgun, and who knows how many more arent admitting anything, then indeed to prate that it is nine ten have banned of out nearly handguns" from their homes. The Establishment overlooked another tiny hint. Occasionally, some of a clergyman will plead peace-love- r with his parishioners to turn in their guns. This does not happen as often as one might expect, because the event usually bombs very badly. So, indeed, did the most recent concerted appeal in Massachusetts. The harvest reportedly totalled one rusty pistol and Not enough steel for two even one plowshare. But, on the other hand, the of Massachusetts must have believed that any people who will put law are ready up with a Bartley-Fo- x for the next step. law is possibly the The Bartley-Fomost unjust and oppressive gun law in the nation. Anyone caught outside his home or place of business with a firearm, but without a license to carry it, and, as the goes to prison for a year Liberals their boast, nobody italics can get you out!" No suspended sentences or other dispositions are allowed, and while in no prison there is, under Bartley-Fox- , credit for good behavior, no chance of parole, and none of those furloughs" for which the state is famous. In Massachusetts, suspended sentences, Good Time, parole, and furlough are for rapists and murderers, not for citizens who dare to step outside the door with a gun in hand without first receiving Liberal" permission. Judge John Fox of Boston, now retired, and David Bartley, a former Speaker of the state legislature who is now president of Holyoke Community of this outCollege, are rage. And they are proud of themselves. Each of them boasted to your reporter that we are licensing people, not guns." It is the lack of that piece of paper, and not the commission of a crime, which incenses these gentlemen. In a civilized society, each of them insisted, there is no reason for anyone to be away from his home or place of business with a firearm he or gun-owner- s. self-delusi- on BB-gun- s. gun-grabbe- rs x she The poor innocent said yes, and even showed it to the trooper. isnt licensed to carry." The logic, such as it is, was ex- plained to us by Mr. Bartley. Studies show that people who are licensed to carry weapons are not the ones committing gun crimes, right? (In general, citiright. They are the zens who obey laws, including gun laws.) Therefore, require a license, and then anybody without one is clearly a criminal, right? (Well, the law makes him a criminal, all right, but what has he done that is so terrible?) Hes a gunman! Bartley seethed. Both Bartley and Fox told us they were delighted with the workings of their law, despite a somewhat critical report by the Harvard Law Schools Center for Criminal Justice. That chestnut! is what Bartley called it. Besides, Judge Fox has his own example of how well his law is working. A year ago, he told us, a doctor and his whole family were murdered by burglars in their home outside Boston. The good news, he said, is that these butchers were careful to get rid of their weapons afterward. Like wow! Were they really more concerned about not having their licenses along than about crummy little laws against homicide? And, had the doctor survived, and chased the culprits without a license for his gun, he would be the one rattling his tin cup on the bars, with no time off for good behavior. Thats Liberal justice. We asked these perpetrators of the Bartley-Fo- x law why, if they thought mandatory minimum sentences with no hope of mercy were such a good idea, they did not put their legal efforts into a mandatory minimum for homicide? It developed that neither of them is interested in homicide. You see, homicide is only a small proportion of crimes (violent crimes, gun crimes," or whatever). One point three percent" is all, they protested. But its a serious crime, I hinted. Judge Fox replied, Everything is a serious crime. Shoplifting is a serious crime. So there is no mandatory minimum in Massachusetts for murder, armed robbery, rape, burglary, arson, or the whole list of acts which normal people tend to regard as crime, but the Liberals" there will lock you up and throw the key away if you are carrying a gun and they havent licensed you ("we iicense people"). One reason why Bartley called the Harvard Law School study a chestnut" is because there was this slight demurrer in it about the number of people his law is throwing in the slammer who had no prior offense, or no other offense. Who were, in other words innocents committing nothing the normal mind would regard as a crime. The score is very nearly one innocent for every crook. Thats a high law-abidi- ng price! One of the First victims was a ld woman, apparently impoverished, who handed out Bible tracts and accepted loose change from recipients. She was apprehended carrying a small paper bag which contained two or three dollars in change, her orange peels (she was not even a littererl), and a .22 derringer" which she may very well have thought she needed to fend off the animals who rob old ladies for fun, if not profit, in this civilized society" of ours. Another early victim was a welder from Maine, who was driving through Massachusetts with his wife in search of a job in some other part of the country. While the couple was napping in a highway rest area, a state trooper checked on the car and noticed a few .22 cartidges on the dashboard. He rapped on the window and asked the awakened man whether he had a gun. Suck-er- ! A third desperado swept off the streets by Bartley and Fox was the boy whose class ring had arrived at the Post Office, C.O.D., and who thoughtlessly tried to sell his plinking rifle to raise the money. I asked Bartley about these innocents, and he first denied their existence, accusing me of reading N.R.A. propaganda." When I finally nailed him through a knowledge of the details, he said loftily, They can appeal!" Naturally, he did not volunteer his services to help. Of course criminals dont mind the gun law. In fact, those murderers to whom Judge Fox referred were rather foolish if they dumped their guns Besolely out of fear of Bartley-Fox- . cause if they were ever caught and convicted of both homicide and the Bartley-Foviolation, the mandatory year sentence would run concurrently with whatever sentence they received for murder (which, even in the Peoples Republic, would presumably exceed a year). Concurrent sentencing gives the criminal class a free ride for almost any number of crimes. Should one happen to be bagged for a whole collection of offenses say, six counts of robbery one might be sentenced to four years on each count. But if you think the crook would be in the pokey for six times four years you just dont understand concurrent sentences. A person can serve time for one crime, or for six or ten crimes, in the same period. It certainly makes no difference for the prisoner a year is a high-scho- ol x year. convicTherefore, a Bartley-Fotion means nothing to a thug who has committed a crime with a gun and faces more than a year anyway. There are, in fact, other ways in which the criminals can profit by their status to escape the law. For instance, criminals know how to handle themselves when in the clutches of the system. They even know how to manipulate it to their own advantage, which citizens do not. Take pleabargaining, for example. Assume that a person is charged with six offenses, a Bartley-Fo- x violation among them. Why, he has something with which to bargain. He can (and so frequently does) let his lawyer make a deal with the prosecutor in which he will plead guilty to one offense in exchange for having the others dropped. Innocent citizens, grabbed under Bartley-Fox- , dont have anything with which to bargain and are hustled off for their year in stir. Perhaps you find all this injustice Perhaps you are saying to yourself, Yes, but surely someone can exhibit some common sense along the way. Surely they can take into consideration . . . . Aha, but the Liberals of Massachusetts are way ahead of you. They are afraid something like that might happen. They dread the possibility of common sense entering the picture. And so they have provided extraordinary measures to ensure that it does not. They have specifically forbidden that a gun case may be continued indefinitely (which means filed and forgotten) and they have even prohibited suspended sentences. Any criminal can get time off for good behavviolators. The ior, but not Bartley-Fo- x same, of course, applies to parole and furlough. The enforcement of this law is monitored closely from the top to make certain that police, prosecutors, and judges show no forbidden mercy, exhibit no forbidden common x non-crimina- mind-bogglin- g. ls |