Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 (Tek) 9/12/84; site tekig.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!bellcore!decvax!tektronix!tekig!davidl From: davidl@tekig.UUCP (David Levadie) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Happy New Year from your local socialist government Message-ID: <2451@tekig.UUCP> Date: Fri, 4-Jan-85 15:02:27 EST Article-I.D.: tekig.2451 Posted: Fri Jan 4 15:02:27 1985 Date-Received: Sun, 6-Jan-85 00:18:20 EST Organization: Tektronix, Beaverton OR Lines: 49 As long as we're going to fling statistics around... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- >From an article in Wall Street Journal by Don B. Kates, Jr, a San Francisco civil-liberties lawyer. District of Columbia police were sued because somehow both "911" calls two women had made to report that their house had been broken into and their downstairs roomate was being raped got lost in the shuffle. The court determined that for the next 14 hours all three were held captive, robbed and sexually tormented. ... ...the court reiterates the universal and "fundamental principle of American law that a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection to any particular citizen." In lieu of a right to police protection, the District safeguards its citizens by forbidding them to buy handguns or keep any gun to protect home or business. ... In the five years before the ban went into effect in 1977, homicide in the District dropped almost 36%. But in the five subsequent years it rose 16% (while decreasing 9% in neighboring Virginia - which has no such law). ... Faced with a drastic increase in rape, Florida police in Orlando instituted a highly publicized program in 1966 in which 3,000 women received handgun defense training. Rape statistics were down 90% by 1967, while aggravated assault dropped 25% and burglary fell 24%. Although rape began to increase again when the one-year program ended, even five years later it was still 13% below the 1966 figure. In the same period, rape in the surrounding area had increased 308%. When a defensive firearms program for Detroit grocers received wide publicity from the police chief's denunciations and the shooting of seven robbers, grocery robberies dropped 90%. ... ...recall the Atlanta suburb that reacted to the Morton Grove, Ill. handgun ban by requiring every sane, responsible head of household to keep a firearm. Compared to the preceding year, burglary rose slightly in Morton Grove but fell 73% in the Atlanta suburb. ... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- OH YEAH... by the way, NOBODY has yet been able to explain to me why I should have to give up ANYTHING because of somebody ELSE's incompetence - or why I should consider allowing the State to "protect" me from my own incompetence, if any. I guess it must just not be convenient for liberal socialist types to discuss such issues... I mean, after all, the rights of the individual are ALWAYS subordinate to those of the "people" (read: socialist government) - right?