Drizzt
Member
Tampa Tribune (Florida)
June 7, 2003, Saturday, FINAL EDITION
SECTION: PASCO, Pg. 1
LENGTH: 837 words
HEADLINE: Anticipating Worst Sort Of Grave Robbing
BYLINE: TOM JACKSON, [email protected]; Tom Jackson can be reached at (813) 948-4219.
BODY:
Ahem. Art Hayhoe. Shhhhh. Hear that?
That was the sound of three dozen word processing programs opening, many to the rat-a-tat accompaniment of downloaded gunfire sound effects. If pictures are worth a thousand words, Hayhoe's name in print is the picture of irritation and inspiration to unswerving supporters of the Second Amendment, a constitutional guarantee gun-rights supporters sense Hayhoe means covertly to repeal, infringement by infringement.
Publish his name and, regular as summer storms, letters of rebuttal shower the editorial staff. Today is an example. In Friday's Tribune, Hayhoe, the Wesley Chapel gun-control activist, linked closing Pasco County's gun show "loophole" to Sunday morning's ambush shooting death of Lt. Charles "Bo" Harrison of the sheriff's office. Turn this page to read the anticipated fallout.
For the record, Hayhoe says neither he nor his affiliates plan a formal antigun display. No signs. No buttons. No organized chanting.
"Some of us may go to the funeral" scheduled for 11 a.m. today, "but it will only be to pay our respects," Hayhoe says. "There will be no protest. We won't be talking about gun control. That would be totally inappropriate."
That is as it should be. The impression is abhorrent that Hayhoe or anyone else with political hay to make would capitalize on the public's solemn farewell to Harrison, a regional treasure. Abhorrent, and in all likelihood counterproductive. Remember the repugnant spectacle of U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone's funeral, reduced to an embarrassing Democratic Party revival mere days before the November 2002 election; some pundits identified the requiem- turned-rally as a key factor in creating the subsequent Senate Republican majority.
Untraceable Mayhem For Sale
Hayhoe may be many things, but ill-mannered and politically tone-deaf are not among them. "I have given orders," he says: No demonstrations. On the other hand, "If reporters, or someone, approaches me, I will talk about what we hope to do."
Regarding that, there may yet be some awkwardness. Hayhoe does, indeed, hope to enlist Harrison's memory, and his living family, to renew pressure on Pasco County commissioners to reconsider their constitutional option to regulate gun shows. The maudlin flogging of gunshot injuries to former presidential spokesman Jim Brady in creation of a sweeping federal handgun control law comes to mind.
Never mind that there is, as yet, not even a suggestion that the high-powered rifle in question was obtained by the triggerman - believed by authorities to be 19-year-old Alfredie Steele Jr., a Lacoochee resident and Pasco High graduate - through legal means at a gun show.
Hayhoe's ready concession doesn't prevent him from recalling the sight of a private seller strolling the aisles of a Pasco County fairgrounds Memorial Day weekend gun show, a Bushmaster (the high-powered weapon of choice in the D.C. sniper case) dangling a price tag slung over his shoulder.
A Debate Unworthy Of Ghouls
It's Hayhoe's opinion that folks visiting gun shows ought to be able to "fill their trunks" with weapons bought from federally licensed dealers, who not only report their sales to law enforcement, but pay state sales tax to boot. But he's foursquare opposed to the loophole that allows private dealers to sell, unfettered, weapons from their "collections."
While Hayhoe says he is "not trying to make that leap" from gun show sale to Harrison's death, it is nonetheless undeniable that "gun violence is going up in Lacoochee and Dade City. ... It's just not a great idea to add a gun show up in that area where you can buy a gun without a background check."
In 1998, when the gun show loophole option appeared on the ballot as a state constitutional amendment, Pasco voters liked it 2.76-to-1. And that was before gun show organizers had ever convened in the county. Much of the argument against passing a local ordinance rested on that ephemeral fact.
Now that we're a regular stop, the debate deserves re-airing. In fact, there may be merit in requiring background checks and generating a paper trail whenever guns change hands. I mean, if it's good enough for a Volkswagen Beetle, shouldn't it be good enough for a Glock 31?
Don't start with me, Second Amendment absolutists; licensing and tracking are to firearms what libel and slander are to a free press. There's nothing about libel and slander in the First Amendment, but both are well-established in law, and fit comfortably with the spirit and the letter of the Constitution.
So let's talk about it, and about arranging for instant checks (hello, technology), as well as about making provisions for the sales of antique guns.
Hayhoe says he's ready to debate any time, anywhere. Well, fine. It's well nigh time for a public showdown. However, unless and until the evidence suggests otherwise, it's intellectually dishonest and downright vulgar to make close-the-loophole arguments standing on the grave of Pasco's honored dead.
June 7, 2003, Saturday, FINAL EDITION
SECTION: PASCO, Pg. 1
LENGTH: 837 words
HEADLINE: Anticipating Worst Sort Of Grave Robbing
BYLINE: TOM JACKSON, [email protected]; Tom Jackson can be reached at (813) 948-4219.
BODY:
Ahem. Art Hayhoe. Shhhhh. Hear that?
That was the sound of three dozen word processing programs opening, many to the rat-a-tat accompaniment of downloaded gunfire sound effects. If pictures are worth a thousand words, Hayhoe's name in print is the picture of irritation and inspiration to unswerving supporters of the Second Amendment, a constitutional guarantee gun-rights supporters sense Hayhoe means covertly to repeal, infringement by infringement.
Publish his name and, regular as summer storms, letters of rebuttal shower the editorial staff. Today is an example. In Friday's Tribune, Hayhoe, the Wesley Chapel gun-control activist, linked closing Pasco County's gun show "loophole" to Sunday morning's ambush shooting death of Lt. Charles "Bo" Harrison of the sheriff's office. Turn this page to read the anticipated fallout.
For the record, Hayhoe says neither he nor his affiliates plan a formal antigun display. No signs. No buttons. No organized chanting.
"Some of us may go to the funeral" scheduled for 11 a.m. today, "but it will only be to pay our respects," Hayhoe says. "There will be no protest. We won't be talking about gun control. That would be totally inappropriate."
That is as it should be. The impression is abhorrent that Hayhoe or anyone else with political hay to make would capitalize on the public's solemn farewell to Harrison, a regional treasure. Abhorrent, and in all likelihood counterproductive. Remember the repugnant spectacle of U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone's funeral, reduced to an embarrassing Democratic Party revival mere days before the November 2002 election; some pundits identified the requiem- turned-rally as a key factor in creating the subsequent Senate Republican majority.
Untraceable Mayhem For Sale
Hayhoe may be many things, but ill-mannered and politically tone-deaf are not among them. "I have given orders," he says: No demonstrations. On the other hand, "If reporters, or someone, approaches me, I will talk about what we hope to do."
Regarding that, there may yet be some awkwardness. Hayhoe does, indeed, hope to enlist Harrison's memory, and his living family, to renew pressure on Pasco County commissioners to reconsider their constitutional option to regulate gun shows. The maudlin flogging of gunshot injuries to former presidential spokesman Jim Brady in creation of a sweeping federal handgun control law comes to mind.
Never mind that there is, as yet, not even a suggestion that the high-powered rifle in question was obtained by the triggerman - believed by authorities to be 19-year-old Alfredie Steele Jr., a Lacoochee resident and Pasco High graduate - through legal means at a gun show.
Hayhoe's ready concession doesn't prevent him from recalling the sight of a private seller strolling the aisles of a Pasco County fairgrounds Memorial Day weekend gun show, a Bushmaster (the high-powered weapon of choice in the D.C. sniper case) dangling a price tag slung over his shoulder.
A Debate Unworthy Of Ghouls
It's Hayhoe's opinion that folks visiting gun shows ought to be able to "fill their trunks" with weapons bought from federally licensed dealers, who not only report their sales to law enforcement, but pay state sales tax to boot. But he's foursquare opposed to the loophole that allows private dealers to sell, unfettered, weapons from their "collections."
While Hayhoe says he is "not trying to make that leap" from gun show sale to Harrison's death, it is nonetheless undeniable that "gun violence is going up in Lacoochee and Dade City. ... It's just not a great idea to add a gun show up in that area where you can buy a gun without a background check."
In 1998, when the gun show loophole option appeared on the ballot as a state constitutional amendment, Pasco voters liked it 2.76-to-1. And that was before gun show organizers had ever convened in the county. Much of the argument against passing a local ordinance rested on that ephemeral fact.
Now that we're a regular stop, the debate deserves re-airing. In fact, there may be merit in requiring background checks and generating a paper trail whenever guns change hands. I mean, if it's good enough for a Volkswagen Beetle, shouldn't it be good enough for a Glock 31?
Don't start with me, Second Amendment absolutists; licensing and tracking are to firearms what libel and slander are to a free press. There's nothing about libel and slander in the First Amendment, but both are well-established in law, and fit comfortably with the spirit and the letter of the Constitution.
So let's talk about it, and about arranging for instant checks (hello, technology), as well as about making provisions for the sales of antique guns.
Hayhoe says he's ready to debate any time, anywhere. Well, fine. It's well nigh time for a public showdown. However, unless and until the evidence suggests otherwise, it's intellectually dishonest and downright vulgar to make close-the-loophole arguments standing on the grave of Pasco's honored dead.
