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Show mwwswvvvv!w-w '-" --.w w - CANNOT BE LEGISLATED "Quick Enactment" of federal gun control laws has again been urged by President Johnson in the immediate aftermath of a shooting in his home state. The object, so he said, is to "help prevent the wrong persons from obtaining ob-taining firearms. There's no denying that the wild spree of an apparently demented gunman at Texas University was a grim and sorrowful event. But by what stretch of whose imagination can it therefore be concluded that a federal law covering the sale of rifles, shotguns and handguns hand-guns would have prevented it, or that passage of such a law will really prevent similar tragedies in the future? The primarily emotional character of this new surge of "anti-gun" activity in other places besides the White House is demonstrated by both the similarities and differences dif-ferences from that which followed the assassination of President Kennedy three years ago. The chief target, or focal point of the anti-gun crusaders then was "mail order" or-der" guns. (Remember all those pictures and cartoons?). This time the picture is of several weapons and the comments com-ments generally stress the fact that the sniper had a veritable ver-itable arsenal with him; without nearly as much emphasis on how he obtained the weapons. Which really proves, when logic prevails over emotion, that how or from whom a gun is obtained has nothing at all to do with how or to what purpose it will be used. The President surely realizes the dangers to long range national interests and to constitutional government govern-ment when laws are passed hurriedly in an atmosphere of emotionalism. . We do approve of the President's expressed desire to "help prevent that wrong person from obtaining firearms." fire-arms." But we think this could be done on the home front by lesser officials than the federal government, through better enforcement in the courts as well as in the streets of the many federal, state and local statutes already al-ready in existence. |