Letters to the Editor
THobbes
Published Letters: 36 Editor's Choice: 4
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Another point
[Read the article: First Amendment martyr?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Missing from Wolf's interview is any consideration of the downside to a federal shield law (don't get me wrong; I support such a law, but it is not as simple as he portrays it). Despite his claim that it is not the government's place to decide who is a journalist, shield laws demand exactly that: so long as there is any disagreement as to whether someone is a journalist or not, there must be some way of determining their status. I'm in favor of drawing that standard broadly, particularly given the ability we all have now to gather and disseminate information electronically, but there must be some guidelines.
There's also the risk of abuse. For example, is someone who simultaneously participates in a crime and films it for public consumption acting as a journalist? I do not think so, but I imagine that a crafty lawyer could make such an argument under a shield law (has this been done already, legal scholars?). We must have some way to resolve the problem.
I'm reminded particularly of the "benefit of clergy," whereby if you could prove you were a clergyman, you would be exempted from civil law and would instead be tried under canon law. Who was a clergyman? Anybody who could read, in particular anyone who could read a particular passage in the Bible. Even as it came to cover anyone who could memorize Psalm 51, it was still the standard used--the benefit was drawn very broadly, and that's ok. The same holds true for a shield law: who we will protect as journalists will depend upon what a exactly journalist is.
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Other songs
[Read the article: The lessons of "My Humps"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]So if "My Humps" sets the course of feminism back 50 years, then does Broadsheet also oppose Johnny Cash's "Cocaine Blues" (in which he sings, "I won't forget the day/I shot that bad bitch down")?
Or "Delia's Gone" ("She was low down and trifling/ And she was cold and mean/ Kind of evil/ Make me want to grab my sub-machine")?
Or "Long Black Veil" ("The judge said, 'Son, what is your alibi?/ If you were somewhere else, then you won't have to die.'/ I spoke not a word, though it meant my life./ For I'd been in the arms of my best friend's wife.")?
Feminism has flourished despite Cash's attempts at justifying murder, misogyny, and adultery, apparently (and think about how many Johnny Cash fans there are!).
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Some good advice
[Read the article: I'm almost 21. Should I buy some guns?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]After all there isn't anything magic about being 21 - it's just a legal limbo bar you can now pass under. It doesn't mean you should. You can just stare at it for a while, decide for yourself how much you have to contort yourself to get under that bar.
I absolutely think that's right, and I think the same argument apply to other milestones as well--drinking, gambling, lottery tickets, etc. Just because we can do a thing doesn't mean we should, nor does it mean that we must enjoy it. Rather, our motivations for doing these things should be honest; that means we have to know our motivations. It seems incredible that people would do things without knowing why they do them, but it absolutely happens.
I think you can avoid that, LW, by thinking about your own motives and desires here, just like Socrates suggested--know thyself. Assuming you can accurately examine your own motives, and you find them sufficiently pure, go ahead and buy your guns (if not, don't--be fair to yourself). Put your gun safety training to use. Buy the safe. Buy the trigger guards. And enjoy a tradition that has been passed through your family for some time.
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I meant
[Read the article: I'm almost 21. Should I buy some guns?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]trigger locks, of course. I would hope that the M1, M14, and Cz75 you want to buy would already have trigger guards.
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Point of disagreement
[Read the article: White House and guns: Stay the course]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Xanthro, I've agreed with you up to now, but I don't think this last line is correct:
Murderers have many tools...of which firearms are pretty far down the list.
The FBI Uniform Crime Reports make it fairly clear that the majority of murders in this country are committed with firearms, handguns in particular. I don't think that negates your basic premise, however: the UCR for 2005 shows that roughly 25% of all murders were committed with a blunt instrument, knife, or fists and feet. Murderers do use a variety of instruments, and anyone sufficiently desirous of committing murder will find a way to do so, even if that involves beating a person to death with their bare hands.
It is true that the United States has a high rate of firearm ownership, and has a higher murder rate than other first world nations; however, other nations have high rates of firearm ownership without high murder rates (Switzerland, Canada) or high rates of murder without similarly high rates of firearm ownership (Mexico, The Philippines). The problem defies naive correlation, which is the point (I think) that so many gun rights supporters wish that the gun control crowd would understand: people do not suddenly go on homicidal rampages because guns are available.
People do not suddenly commit crime because guns are available. Guns do not make a person any better or worse than they were previously; the problem of violence is a complex one and the calls for things like "Let's get rid of all guns!" or some such are pointless.