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University Daily Kansan, January 25, 1982
Opinion
Illinois gun control programs are a lifesaving compromise
Before this column on handgun control begins, I would like to make a deal with handgun supporters.
1. in representing the control arguments, will not bring up the death of John Lennon, the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan or the gun death rate in most European countries.
Let's discuss two new arguments about handgun control. Let's talk about social responsibility and state and local rights. There are two experiments in gun control going on that could have repercussions all over the country.
And those against any type of control will not mention that the West wasn't won with a registered gun, that guns don't kill people or that when guns are banned, only outwatches will have
DAN TORCHIA
Both these experiments are in Illinois. In Morton Grove, a town of 24,000, just north of Chicago, a band on handguns goes into effect next Monday. In Chicago, on Jan. 14, Mayor Jane Byrne and mayor Bill Nader number of handguns in the city and would create stricter guidelines for registration.
But at least the two cities are doing something about the handgun problem, which has been ignored too long. They are not looking at the 10,000 or so gun laws we have in the country, concluding that gun control doesn't work and wondering why there are so many handgun
Neither of the ordinances is in effect yet. The Morton Grove ordinance, while it goes in effect Monday, is being appealed and will probably go to the Supreme Court. There is the chance that it would be decided on Thursday. Hearings will be held concerning the Chicago ordinance, which could take a long time.
We register our cars. We register our toasters.
Who can we register all of our guns?
This is the way the Chicago ordinance would work: The only handguns that could legally be possessed would be guns currently registered, by the police and security personnel, except by the police and security personnel.
Private citizens could own handguns out of this pool. They would have to annually register their handguns with the police department. The owner, and not the seller as in the old ordinance, would have to register, and it would have to be done before possessing the gun.
Extensive biographical information, including photos and possibly fingerprints, would be required. And, for those who were denied permits, there would be a formal review system set up to hear denial protests. Persons could only buy ammunition for the guns they possess.
The law doesn't guarantee any drop in han-
dum deaths, nor a drop in violent crime. But the total number of guns in the city would be limited. People who shouldn't have them would be screened out better, and the formal review system would provide some sort of police accountability to the public.
The law also would be an indication of how successful a stricter gun law would be. If the law doesn't reduce the number of handguns in Chicago and doesn't reduce handgun crime and deaths, then a stronger law probably wouldn't propose ordinance as a step in the right direction.
Morton Grove's ordinance is much more drastic. Last June 8, the Morton Grove board outlawed all handguns. Only police, security and law enforcement members are allowed to possess handguns.
The police department which has announced that it will not search homes for weapons, will store the guns until the ordinance's final constitutionality is decided. The ordinance was upheld by a federal district court judge on Dec. 29, but it is being appealed.
On Jan. 11, the board voted to begin enforcement of the ordinance Monday. Residents will be required to turn the guns in on their own accord.
The Morton Grove ordinance is potentially far-reaching. It is one thing to limit the number of handguns and another to ban them. But, even in a ban, rights aren't being abridged. Collectors must be provided they may improper, and the ordinance does not affect other types of firearms.
Morton Grove residents will ultimately decide the success of the law. If they do not turn hangouts in, there is nothing the police or the board can do. There are fines for noncompliance, but no provisions for collecting guns except by volunteering. If people won't turn them in, the law will fail. Fine. Again, at least something was attempted.
It will be interesting to see the federal government's reaction to these laws. One of President Reagan's main tenets has been to turn backward in response back to the state and local governments.
There will have to be an exceptional reason to overturn these laws when they undoubtedly reach the higher courts. If the Reagan administration can justify turning back many federal programs back to the state and local government, it has to allow them to decide the handout question.
Congress won't decide, despite public sentiment in favor of some kind of handgun law. It certainly won't do it this year, as this is an election year.
We have a moral obligation to try and reduce crime and death from handguns. If we are ever going to change things, it is going to have to start at a grassroots level. The Chicago and Morton Grove ordinances, if accepted, could signal the start.
At the very least, they show how people can affect local politics. It could add up to sweeping changes all over the country.
Sports overplayed; learning benched
It's almost 2 a.m. Your roommate is toiling away on a biochemistry project while you prepare third draft of your works thesis. But of course, working like Spartans for the entire semester.
Suddenly, there's a commotion in the hall. Mumbling under his breath, your roommate trudges to the door, opens it and stands there in awe. Into your living room bursts the KU Marching Band, the Spirit Squad and countless high and mighty alumni—all of whom break into a roaring chorus of "Fighting Jawhawk."
By this time, the flowver from the crowd has spilled into your bedroom. Middle-aged men from the class of 55 slap you on the back. You grin at them sheepishly.
DAVID HENRY
"Helluva job on that last paragraph," they exclaim. "Keep up the good work for the team!"
Meanwhile, back in the living room, your hapless roommate has been corrupted by an alumni representative from the National Academy of Sciences.
'Aw, c'm, deft.' the older man pleads. "Drop out after your junior year, and we'll give you a five-year contract for a cool million bucks. How about a Trans-Am on top of it? Your work in enzymes is just what we need for the Academy team."
Finally, they leave the apartment, and you and your roommate have a laugh about it. They'd told you that KU had a big-time academic program when they recruited you.
That's also what they told Antoine Carr and Cliff Levinson about Wichita State University. Only it wasn't biochemistry or molecular biology, but it was Cassidy and Levinson to WSU three years ago.
The NCAA sanctions are a bitter pill for WSU's nationally ranked basketball program. The Shockers are banned from post-season play for the next two years and also must forfeit one scholarship during that season, but the conditions that new to WSU; in fact, last week's sanctions were the Shockers' sixth reprimand from the NCAA, a record.
Last week, these two athletes, along with the rest of the WSU basketball team, were placed on a three-year probation by the NCAA.
Wichita State was found guilty of a wide variety of violations, including providing free airline tickets and other free transportation for players, cash handouts, free clothing, paying for meals and lodging for players and unethical conduct by two former assistant
Fiat/BMW 10 Series
The players were "bedeveld by allegations which do not pertain to you," the ad said, "actions for which you bear no responsibility and punishment you do not deserve."
Last Sunday, the Wichita Eagle-Beacon devoted numerous articles, columns and letters to the editor about the probation. And the WSU Alumni Association placed a full-page ad that proclaimed unflagging support for the team.
The capstone of this fervent "Shocker Mania" was found on an electronic sign outside WSU's Henry Levitt Arrtna It read, "You have the Shockers . . . for they know what they do."
My purpose here is not to instinute that Bob Marcum, or his eventual successor, is not
Indeed, perhaps only the good Lord knows where the guilt lies at WSU. It's clear, however, to any mortal that the case raises serious questions about the purpose of intercollegiate athletics at WSU and elsewhere—including KU.
The fiscal '82 operating budget for athletics at KU, a modest seventh among Big Eight schools, is nonetheless almost $4 million. The director of the Kansas University Athletic Corporation (note the organization's name) has a salary rivaling that of the executive vice chancellor, KU's number-two administrator.
worth $22,400. Rather, I'm wondering why KU's intercollegiate athletic program has become so large and so important that its head coach must be paid more than the governor of Kansas.
I become increasingly concerned when I hear a KU vice chancellor tell a group of tenured professors at a recent luncheon to take "greater pride" in transmitting knowledge to students and then hear her decline questions about faculty salaries.
Furthermore, I find it incredible that the University considers its athletic program so important that it can unashamedly ask its players to play in the NCAA and accept the athletic director, a job he will willingly accept.
Lately, there's been a lot of talk coming
from the school that strong comp-
mongement in academic excellence.
Yet, it's safe to say that students sometimes wonder where the University's true commitments actually lie. When athletes begin to rival higher education at a university, and with Wichita State, they become as corrupt as a murder plot, something is sadly amass.
As a student, I really don't expect a sea of arms doing the "waving wheat" every time I have a successful semester. I do, however, expect the University to order its priorities properly and to carry them out to the best of its ability.
I'll all for "Shocker mania" or "Jaywack
tover," so long as its main thrust is toward
them.
Wartime draft renewal has costly side effects
Rv MICHAEL USEEM
New York Times Special Features
BOSTON-The military draft will not be reinstated except in the most severe national emergency, President Reagan declared as he announced continuation of registration for a possible draft. Nonetheless, the idea of a draft seems to have some life in Washington. Alas.
Sen. Sam Nunn, D-GA., a member of the Armed Services Committee's Subcommittee on Manpower and Personnel, has been calling for an early resumption of the draft. So, too, has Gen Bernard W. Rogers, commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Reinstatement of the draft would ignore the costly side effects—for the military and the rest of the country—that could result from reviving conscription.
In extending registration, Reagan argued, "In the event of a future threat on national safety, registration could save the United States as well as six weeks in mobilizing emergency manpower."
Concerned above all to make recruitment more efficient, the president failed to take account of the lessons we should have learned about the draft during the Vietnam War.
About a million men have refused to register with the Selective Service since registration was reintroduced in 1900. Larger numbers can be expected to resist the draft itself. At a vulnerable age, a woman who refuses to be forced to submit to a system to which they are strongly opposed—or face criminal prosecution.
Reinstituting the draft, which was ended in 1973, would add further to the militarization of American life. High schools would be asked to provide the names of graduating seniors to draft authorities. Families and friends would be given the dilemmas of young men faced with induction.
The coercive power of conscription could well become another instrument for the suppression of domestic protest. Its use to discourage protest dissent during the Vietnam War is instructive.
As opposition to the war spread, the Selective Service System directed its local boards to increase the number of volunteers.
conscription and military recruiting on campuses. A poll of male students at the University of Wisconsin showed the chilling effect: half believed that even peaceful picketing against the war would lead to withdrawal of their student deferment.
If the draft is reinstated, compensation for enlisted personnel is likely to drop substantially below comparable civilian wages. Enlisted men's pay during the Vietnam period declined to less than 60 percent of the average wages of men employed in manufacturing.
A policy of substandard compensation would not immediately follow reintroduction of the draft, but it would prove an attractive way of cutting the cost of defense later on. It would thus certainly be imposed on those already required to give two years of their lives.
A lottery system for selective induction would randomly choose a fraction, perhaps 30 percent, of the 2 million young men who become eligible every year. The alternative, in use until 1969, would be to select young men who have left school and are working at what are considered
Under conscription that allowed deferments, youths should again be encouraged to pursue educational and employment paths to avoid induction. During the Vietnam War, for example, student and occupational deferments brought millions of young men into academic studies and draft-exempt jobs they otherwise would not have been eligible for. Such equally damaging was the effect on universities: Grades were inflated and enrollments swollen by those seeking a way to stay out of Indochina.
Though the lottery would clearly be fairer, support for it would weaken as affluent parents and parents of college students lobbied for special exemptions. Use of a lottery at the outset of a new draft would be thus uncertain; its continued use would be even more questionable. The US Supreme Court in the United States does revert to a system of deferments, additional problems would follow.
Furthermore, the inequities of social class could plague any new draft not based on a lottery. If recent history repeated itself, conscription would hit hardest the children of middle-income families. During the Vietnam era, sons of the poor served less often because they tended to fail a qualifying aptitude test. Sons of affluent families also served less often because, they tended to obtain student and occupational deferments.
non-essential occupations—primarily blue-collar jobs
A draft could become a dangerous instrument in the hands of an administration moving toward a foreign war that lacked public support and congressional approval.
The Johnson administration used a draft, approved years earlier in peacetime, to pursue the military buildup in Vietnam in 1966 and 1967. Public debate was thereby avoided, and the power to conscript an increasing supply of troops to expand a war for which volunteers were by then in sharp decline. This forced conscripted men to bear the brunt of the fighting, and nearly half the Army troops killed in battle had been drafted.
Peaceaist conscription is not an accepted part of the American tradition. Only twice before we have instituted a peacetime draft—in 1940, on the occasion of World War II, and in 1948, at the start of the Cold War.
Without a comparable world crisis, and with military volunteer rates running high, the costs of bringing back the draft loom large, indeed. A decision to force young men into uniform would result in policy whose consequences would only be a disservice to the country.
(Michael Useem, professor of sociology at Boston University, is author of "Conscription, Protest and Social Conflict," and several other studies of the military draft.)
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