THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 25, 1995 TAG: 9506230242
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Another View
SOURCE: BY JAMES G. THOMSON
LENGTH: Medium: 65 lines
The recent Hampton Roads Roundtable on the militia movement (The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star, May 28) was a fine piece of journalism. Each panelist added more light than heat on an issue that other media outlets have only sensationalized.
Professor Benjamin Berry of Virginia Wesleyan College identifies the central problem: ``Many, many Americans on all sides of many political issues are not listening to each other, unwilling to speak to each other, unwilling to hear another side growing out of . . . a great deal of fear.''
He is absolutely right. Too little genuine political discussion, exchange of ideas between people with a goal of persuading the other, is taking place. What passes is too often just adversaries shouting past each other toward an outside audience. Labels implying evil are applied to the other side to deny them respect they otherwise deserve. Admitting that our adversaries have any honor is clearly out of fashion.
The press is fond of characterizing the rhetoric of the right this way. But it also happens when lions of the left claim that transfer of school lunch programs to the states is an attempt to ``starve children,'' and when a $500 tax credit for each child becomes a ``tax break for the rich'' or the ``action of a new KKK.''
This rhetoric is also illustrated by the gun-control movement's claim that ``assault weapons'' are intended only to kill people. The only intentions they could refer to are those of the owners: Is it any wonder many innocent owners are offended? ``Assault weapons'' get classified on the basis of such cosmetic qualities as possessing a folding stock, rather than on their performance, further weakening the distinction.
Professor Berry claims, ``The gun issue is one . . . that needs to be addressed first. It's difficult to debate in the presence of bullets. I think we need to work out a system in which we don't shoot at each other, but talk to each other, and we can't do that with all these guns around. . . .''
This is a prescription for failure. According to Professor James D. Wright (in a recent article in Society, ``Then Essential Observations about Guns in America,'' March/April 1995, pgs. 63-68), even gun-control advocates agree that approximately 200 million guns are in circulation here. Current gun-control strategies operate at points of retail sale and impact only law-abiding citizens. If all retail sales stop immediately, and if all guns involved in crime or accidents were confiscated, there would still be guns to sustain current rates for about 200 years.
Reducing violence more quickly by restraining guns requires far more draconian measures against law-abiding gun owners than gun-control advocates now admit to. This is, of course, precisely what the militiamen fear.
We must re-civilize our political discourse now, despite the presence of weapons. It is time to stop charging others who hold opinions and order facts differently than we do with being inherently evil, even if it limits the coercive powers of government. Ending this routine vilification of others by honestly discussing differences can also reduce the fear that cause people to desire weapons. Perhaps we could even solve some problems that we now just fight about. MEMO: Mr. Thomson, a free-lance writer who is retired from the U.S. Navy,
lives on Lake Shore Drive in Chesapeake.
by CNB