Today, Carl takes time out from his one-man jihad against the Walt Disney Corporation to return to his other neurotic obsession, the NRA.
http://www.oscnewsgazette.com/index.php?option=news&task=viewarticle&sid=7256
Common sense shot down by NRA’s goobers
28 Nov 2003
Carl Hiaasen Miami Herald
If you’re a prosecutor or a police officer in Florida, here are some names to remember:
Juan-Carlos Planas, Carl Domino, Ken Sorensen, Mark Mahon, John Quinones, Mike Davis, Curtis Richardson, Lorraine Ausley, Don Davis, Dennis Ross, Jeffrey Kottkamp, Kevin Ambler and Gaton Catens.
These are not friends of law enforcement.
These are state legislators who are trying to make it as difficult as possible to trace the ownership of guns found at crime scenes. Every pistol-packing felon in Florida should write these knuckleheads a thank-you note.
Last week, the House Judiciary Committee — on which the above-named politicians serve — OK’d a bill that would ban police from maintaining computerized lists of gun sales and owners for more than 30 days.
If passed by the Legislature next spring, the law will strip authorities of an important crime-solving tool for no other reason but politics.
Currently, Florida police keep databases of firearm-sales records from pawn shops and some gun dealers. When one turns up at a crime scene, or in a suspect’s possession, its origin can be traced by typing the serial number into a computer.
The paranoid droolers at the National Rifle Association have long opposed police efforts to computerize gun records, saying it’s an iron-fisted step toward totalitarianism.
According to the NRA’s propaganda, which reads like The National Lampoon, the same government that can’t locate thousands of visa violators (including terrorists) is somehow capable of tracking down and confiscating every lawfully owned firearm in America.
To peddle this loony Orwellian fantasy, NRA lobbyists in Florida dredged up a couple of goobers named Dennis Baxley and Lindsay Harrington, Republican legislators from Ocala and Punta Gorda, respectively.
Propaganda
Baxley and Harrington “co-sponsored†the anti-cop bill that went to the House panel. As originally penned by the NRA, the legislation invoked the names of Adolf Hitler and Fidel Castro as examples of despots who espoused gun controls.
Get a load of Baxley: “We’re at a point in our history where the government is trying to slowly take away our rights, piece by piece, and I'm trying to stop that. By accumulating all this (gun) data, it could fall into the wrong hands. And that could be a treacherous thing.â€
Don’t bother to ask him in what way a sales receipt for a .38 Special might be put to nefarious use, and into whose evil hands it might fall. And don’t ask if he can name a single instance when it’s happened, because he can’t.
Not even Marion Hammer, the NRA’s hatchet woman in Tallahassee, provided lawmakers with one example of a law-abiding citizen being “harassed†or “abused†because of computerized sales data.
Police, however, can tell lots of stories about crimes being solved because they were able to swiftly track the ownership of a weapon.
One recent example: Pawnshop sales records helped detectives connect a Miami Beach man accused of shooting three of his neighbors with the gun used in the attack.
The notion that firearms buyers have a constitutional right to anonymity is a fiction promoted by the NRA, and one consistently not embraced by the courts.
The government already keeps track of the land we own, the people we marry, the children we have and the money we make. Most reasonable citizens don’t have a problem providing their names when pawning or purchasing a handgun.
But the NRA fuels its recruiting with rabid fear, not facts, and there’s no shortage of hayseed politicians who are eager to take its money and go rant for the cause.
It’s impossible to overstate the brainless lunacy of the proposed law, which would penalize police departments up to $5 million for keeping computerized gun lists.
Yet, at the same time, law-enforcement agencies would be allowed to obtain the very same firearms sales and ownership information — but only on paper. What is now a 30-second piece of keyboard detective work would become an all-day chore, requiring manual reviews of thousands of records.
Only negative results
Obviously, the intent of the law is to discourage gun-tracking by police, especially in busy, understaffed departments. The result will be more unsolved crimes, less evidence upon which to prosecute violent criminals, and more acquittals in court.
And Republicans claim to be the law-and-order party?
Every armed robber, carjacker and gang-banger in Florida will sleep easier, if Rep. Baxley and the others get their way.
(Carl Hiaasen is a columnist for the Miami Herald. Readers may write to him at: 1 Herald Plaza, Miami, Fla., 33132)
Edited to remove an incorrect email addy for Mr. Hiaasen in the original article copy. Those crazy copy editors!
http://www.oscnewsgazette.com/index.php?option=news&task=viewarticle&sid=7256
Common sense shot down by NRA’s goobers
28 Nov 2003
Carl Hiaasen Miami Herald
If you’re a prosecutor or a police officer in Florida, here are some names to remember:
Juan-Carlos Planas, Carl Domino, Ken Sorensen, Mark Mahon, John Quinones, Mike Davis, Curtis Richardson, Lorraine Ausley, Don Davis, Dennis Ross, Jeffrey Kottkamp, Kevin Ambler and Gaton Catens.
These are not friends of law enforcement.
These are state legislators who are trying to make it as difficult as possible to trace the ownership of guns found at crime scenes. Every pistol-packing felon in Florida should write these knuckleheads a thank-you note.
Last week, the House Judiciary Committee — on which the above-named politicians serve — OK’d a bill that would ban police from maintaining computerized lists of gun sales and owners for more than 30 days.
If passed by the Legislature next spring, the law will strip authorities of an important crime-solving tool for no other reason but politics.
Currently, Florida police keep databases of firearm-sales records from pawn shops and some gun dealers. When one turns up at a crime scene, or in a suspect’s possession, its origin can be traced by typing the serial number into a computer.
The paranoid droolers at the National Rifle Association have long opposed police efforts to computerize gun records, saying it’s an iron-fisted step toward totalitarianism.
According to the NRA’s propaganda, which reads like The National Lampoon, the same government that can’t locate thousands of visa violators (including terrorists) is somehow capable of tracking down and confiscating every lawfully owned firearm in America.
To peddle this loony Orwellian fantasy, NRA lobbyists in Florida dredged up a couple of goobers named Dennis Baxley and Lindsay Harrington, Republican legislators from Ocala and Punta Gorda, respectively.
Propaganda
Baxley and Harrington “co-sponsored†the anti-cop bill that went to the House panel. As originally penned by the NRA, the legislation invoked the names of Adolf Hitler and Fidel Castro as examples of despots who espoused gun controls.
Get a load of Baxley: “We’re at a point in our history where the government is trying to slowly take away our rights, piece by piece, and I'm trying to stop that. By accumulating all this (gun) data, it could fall into the wrong hands. And that could be a treacherous thing.â€
Don’t bother to ask him in what way a sales receipt for a .38 Special might be put to nefarious use, and into whose evil hands it might fall. And don’t ask if he can name a single instance when it’s happened, because he can’t.
Not even Marion Hammer, the NRA’s hatchet woman in Tallahassee, provided lawmakers with one example of a law-abiding citizen being “harassed†or “abused†because of computerized sales data.
Police, however, can tell lots of stories about crimes being solved because they were able to swiftly track the ownership of a weapon.
One recent example: Pawnshop sales records helped detectives connect a Miami Beach man accused of shooting three of his neighbors with the gun used in the attack.
The notion that firearms buyers have a constitutional right to anonymity is a fiction promoted by the NRA, and one consistently not embraced by the courts.
The government already keeps track of the land we own, the people we marry, the children we have and the money we make. Most reasonable citizens don’t have a problem providing their names when pawning or purchasing a handgun.
But the NRA fuels its recruiting with rabid fear, not facts, and there’s no shortage of hayseed politicians who are eager to take its money and go rant for the cause.
It’s impossible to overstate the brainless lunacy of the proposed law, which would penalize police departments up to $5 million for keeping computerized gun lists.
Yet, at the same time, law-enforcement agencies would be allowed to obtain the very same firearms sales and ownership information — but only on paper. What is now a 30-second piece of keyboard detective work would become an all-day chore, requiring manual reviews of thousands of records.
Only negative results
Obviously, the intent of the law is to discourage gun-tracking by police, especially in busy, understaffed departments. The result will be more unsolved crimes, less evidence upon which to prosecute violent criminals, and more acquittals in court.
And Republicans claim to be the law-and-order party?
Every armed robber, carjacker and gang-banger in Florida will sleep easier, if Rep. Baxley and the others get their way.
(Carl Hiaasen is a columnist for the Miami Herald. Readers may write to him at: 1 Herald Plaza, Miami, Fla., 33132)
Edited to remove an incorrect email addy for Mr. Hiaasen in the original article copy. Those crazy copy editors!
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