Zurich Citizens News, 1981-04-09, Page 4Pag• 4
Citizens N•ws April 9, 1981
"Stop .getting hysterical they're only statistics ! "
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Gun laws don't stop crime
Is is a sad commentary on North American life
when it must be recognized that gun controls will not
prevent, but merely hold down the rate of violent
crime.
The attempted assassination of US President
Ronald Rea an has brought forth another round of gun
control debate.
We must however agree with a New York Times
editorial: "There is a knee-jerk quality to the simple
assertion that reducing guns will reduce crime."
Those who do not want gun control laws, the
legitimate hunters and collectors, argue they are
simply harrassed by the laws. Only half -of -one -percent
of all hand guns in circulation are used in crimes. It is
said research shows gun laws may shift crime from
`hard' targets, such as banks, to_softer ones, such as
old people.
But gun laws are believed to reduce impluse
killings --more assault victims die from gunshot
wounds than stabbings and hold down crime in-
creases.
John Hickley was arrested in Nashville list Oc-
tober on the same day both Reagan and President Jim-
my Carter were scheduled to visit the city. He was fin-
ed $62 for possession of three handguns (Two being .22
calibre revolvers, similar to that used in the Reagan
assassination attempt) and released about an hour
later.
With a variety of state and local laws, the
Americans are at a disadvantage. Canada has a uni-
form gun law.
In Canada, a would-be assassin with a past arrest
for illegal possession of hand guns, would have a hard
time getting authorization to purchase another.
The criminals will always have guns. No amount
of laws can stop someone truly intent on causing bodily
harm. Gun controls will not prevent crimes.
But even if gun controls save only a single life, or
prevent a single injury -- and we will never know for
sure they will have been worthwhile.
Investigate Bell forecasts
Bell Canada may have a case for large
telephone rate increases - but, if so, it remains to be
proved. Though Bell's service is, generally speak-
ing, a model of efficiency, that alone doesn't justify
further rate increases of 30 percent for residential
services and up to 40 percent for business services.
The potential impact of Bell's applications to
the Canadian radio -television and telecom-
munications commission (CRTC) is dramatized by
the fact that it was revealed on the same day
Statistics Canada reported a 12 -month inflation rate
of 12 percent.
Public skepticism toward Bell's request is like-
ly to be fuelled by the company's reasoning that it
needs higher rates to offset competition resulting
from an interim CRTC decision allowing
subscriber -owned equipment to be attached to Bell
lines. In other words, encroachment on a monopoly
is being cited as part of the argument for rate in-
creases.
Bell anticipates increases of 17.3 and 16.2 per-
cent in operating costs this year and next, respec-
tively. Those increases are substantial and bear
close CRTC scrutiny during public hearings to be
held in the spring. If, in fact, they are reasonable es-
timates, the company will require additional
revenue to maintain high levels of service and to
keep up with demands for expansion.
On the other hand, consumers and business
customers are entitled to assurances that Bell's
forecast expanses are in the public interest and that
substantial rate increases are therefore justified.
It's the CRTC's responsibility to provide them. The
usual market forces don't apply to Bell's situation
because the company has profited from what
amounts to a government -sanctioned monopoly, to
which an element of competition is only now being
introduced.
(Leamington Post)
By
ROB CHESTER
Space -races are born, not created.
Some people are mistaken in their belief the cold -
war ended back in the sixties.
Perhaps it didn't. It just seems to have. gotten
plowed under a variety of other top=notch crises such
as Vietnam, pollution, separatism, the oil crisis, reces-
sion, nuclear energy, acid rain, the constitution....
Before we get embroiled in a long and windy
debate on the constitution, or how United States Presi-
dent Ronald Reagan is going to lead us into Armaged-
don, let us take a look at the showpiece of the cold war-
, the space -race.
Aspects of the east -west cold war were as deadly
frightening as they were frighteningly deadly.
Spies skulked back and forth, probing for soft
spots. Countries welcomed defectors more often than
ambassadors.
Governments around the world built up piles and
piles of bombs and bullets --preparing for a war
nobody wanted. It was a vicious circle, always trying
to keep just one bomb ahead of the enemy.
As the missles got bigger and the bombs more
sophisticated, it was no longer a matter of lobbing
shells over a hill or across a chewed -up piece of no -
man's land. You could launch warheads into earth or-
bit, whizz them around as many times as necessary
and plunk them down on predetermined targets. (It
should be noted precision is not required in atomic
warfare.)
Suddenly, someone decided to send a man into or-
bit. It seemed to be of no useful purpose for the human
race, which made the idea even more desirable to
those waging a cold war.
The idea was not so much to do it, as it was to do it
first.
Now, nobody in his right mind will let himself be
strapped to the top of a ballistic missile and shot into
inky blackness.
As rumour has it, one of the original seven
astronauts, chosen from the cream of the test pilot
crop, clean-cut all-American boys that they were, dis-
dained all forms of profanity.
When told he was to be shot into orbit, he said he'd
be a monkey's uncle before he went into space.
So NASA (the American's National Aeronautics
and Space Administration) took him up on it and sent a
monkey's uncle naturally another monkey into
space.
(It ig interesting to note, cold war fans, the
Russians sent a dog on their first foray into space. It
takes little imagination to see to what relative, of what
animal, the Soviet's expletive referred.)
Ham the chimpanzee returned to Earth with
damage no worse than a bruised snout. We haven't
looked back since.
The American space shuttle is scheduled to be
launched April 10.
Born of the cold war, it has evolved into science.
A radio report berated the American project as a
waste. It compared launch figures: the Russians
launched some 89 satellites and manned space flights
lastyear; the Americans launched about 17, none nam-
ed.
This is cold war thinking, to compare numbers, not
quality. The Soviet flights were to a small orbiting
space station, and were a concrete example of the
Soviet's utilization of space. The Americans
meanwhile, stumbled about with a problem -plagued
shuttle. Or so the broadcaster would have us believe.
He forgets the Americans went to the moon, and
had a space lab program before beginning the shuttle.
The shuttle will eventually be the "work -horse of
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