4A
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Tuesday, February 20, 1996
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OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VIEWPOINT
Fight for improved Kansas schools should continue
The Kansas House Education Committee recently advanced onto the House floor the bill instating qualified admissions to Kansas Board of Regents schools.
By a narrow 11-10 margin the committee again has brought needed and overdue legislation to the attention and the scrutiny of the Kansas House of Representatives.
While the bill would not raise admissions standards enough to significantly improve the academic demographics of Kansas schools, if passed it will be the beginning of a potential multitiered system of academic institutions. The bill's sponsor, Ralph Tanner, R-Baldwin City, and one of the proposed amendment sponsors, Pat Pettey, D-Kansas City, have separately and perhaps accidentally begun to focus the debate about qualified admissions into very specific and admirable components.
Pettey's amendment, which was defeated 11-9, would have established a 3.0 minimum high school grade point average for admission to one University as a pilot
THE ISSUE:
Qualified admissions
Two state representatives are on the right track with qualified admissions proposals.
to see if the caliber of students would improve. Of course the answer to her question is obvious, but the step would have been large toward compelling the Board of Regents into implementing a tiered system of qualified admissions.
Tanner and Pettey should be congratulated for their efforts to improve the quality of education within the Kansas Board of Regents institutions.
Whether their motivations are unique or shared is of no significance because their apparent goal of eventually attaining a real system of qualified admissions is one to be lauded. If they do not succeed this time, they should be encouraged to continue to propose this type of legislation and to keep fighting for the improvement of education in the state of Kansas.
CHRIS VINE FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Graves does not have the right to block House testimonies
The governor of the state of Kansas said last week he wished to apologize. If he has hurt anyone's feelings, he is very sorry. Why?
Because he has decided to exert undue influence and prevent the Legislature from exercising its right to hear testimony on any issue from anybody it seeks to hear.
Last week, several conservative legislators decided to call the director of corrections of the state of Alabama to speak in favor of legislation which would set up chain gangs in Kansas prisons. In a move to block this witness, Gov. Bill Graves decided to call the governor of Alabama to prevent the director of corrections from appearing.
Graves has decided against chain gangs. And he apparently has decided that no one in the Legislature can call on a witness to testify that they are effective.
This is bad government. The state of Kansas is not an empire, and Bill Graves
THE ISSUE:
House testimony
Gov. Bill Graves should not be allowed to deny the Legislature's right to hear testimony on the Statehouse floor.
is certainly no czar. The elected representatives of the state have a right to hear from whomever they want to call. The governor cannot simply block testimony because he does not agree with the thesis of legislation which is under consideration. The Legislature is the place where all ideas of any political stripe are supposed to be examined.
In his campaign, Graves promised to "stack'em high and tight." It was a wonderful piece of empty campaign propaganda meant to convey the ideas of fairness and responsibility that he learned while working in his father's trucking company. As governor, Graves apparently wants to stack'em high and mighty.
TOM MOORE FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
How far behind the First Amendment can a publisher stand? One family in Maryland hopes to prove that a manual for hit men is not protected by the Bill of Rights.
HANDBOOK FOR HOMICIDE
By Craig Lang / Illustration by Micah Laaker
When James Edward Perry committed a triple murder in 1993, he probably wasn't nervous.
Whether or not he was a novice in the art of homicide, any questions he could have had about committing the crime were answered in a 130-page handbook.
Perry, a Detroit man, was convicted and sentenced to death for the murders of flight attendant Mildred Horn, her severely disabled 8-year-old son Trevor, and the boy's nurse, Janice Saunders, at Horn's home in Silver Spring, Md. Lawrence T. Horn, Trevor's father and Mildred Horn's former husband, was accused of hiring Perry to commit the crimes to inherit money his son won in a malpractice suit.
During Perry's murder trial, prosecutors pointed out connections between the steps taken by Perry and the instructions in a book called Hit Man: A Technical Manual for the Independent Contractors.
The parallels included everything from Perry's use of an AR-7 rifle, his decision to shoot both of the adults in the eyes and the way he modified and disposed his weapon.
Hit Man made the homicide too easy for Perry to commit.
The book goes to court
In a move unprecedented in U.S. jurisprudence, the sisters and adult daughter of Mildred Horn have sued the publishers of the book for an unspecified amount, claiming that the manual aided and abetted the murders.
the publisher of Hit Man is Paladin Press, a Boulder, Colo., company known for its reference works and how-to manuals on weapons, explosives and military and paramilitary tactics. The company's catalog features such titles as How to Make Disposable Silencers (Vol I, II) and The Anarchist Handbook and Be Your Own Undertaker: How to Dispose of a Dead Body.
der in a civil suit because of the publication of a book.
The legal team for the prosecution said this case would be the first time anybody has tried to hold someone partially responsible for mur-
"I think if we prevail in this case, it will make it an impossibility to escape liability for people who publish manuals that have the sole purpose of teaching people to kill others," said Rod Smolla, a professor of law at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va., and a member of the legal team that filed the lawsuit in December.
Responsibility lies with the publisher
As members of the free press, publishers have to be responsible for the material they print. Censorship should not be necessary, but a book telling its readers how to take another human's life serves no purpose in improving our society. It simply makes it easier for more criminals to commit murder and get away with it.
Bruce Sanford, a Washington, D.C., lawyer who represents the defense, argues that if Horn's family prevails, it could devastate writing and publishing in America.
Sanford told the Washington Post that Tom Clancy could be held liable if someone enacted a murder scene in one of his techno-thrillers and that the publishers could be charged if someone learned how to plan a murder from Hannibal Lector's acts in Thomas Harris' Silence of the Lambs.
However, Smolla would dispute those arguments, saying that those novels were written for entertainment purposes and have redeeming social value.
Hit Man, and some of the other books published by Paladin Press, were not made to entertain fans of action and horror novels. They were made as reference tools for those who have the desire to kill and harm others but perhaps lack the know-how.
Hit Man, written by an author who uses the pseudonym Rex Feral, does contain a publisher's disclaimer three times throughout the book: "For informational purposes only."
Although the publishers make this disclaimer, Feral promotes the use of the methods taught in his book.
"It is my opinion that the professional hit man fills a need in society and is, at times, the only alternative for 'personal' justice," he writes. "Moreover, if my advice and the proven methods in this book are followed, certainly no one will ever know."
Peder C. Lund, president and founder of Paladin Press, also is named in the lawsuit. Lund said he could not comment on the situation for legal reasons.
His lawyer, Tom Kelly of Boulder, Colo., said he also would not be able to make a statement about the case until after the first preliminary hearing, scheduled for Feb. 29.
However, two years ago in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Lund said he would not take the blame for anything that resulted from information published by Paladin.
"As a human, I feel very sorry for anyone who's put through any physical suffering," he said. "As a publisher and a pragmatist, I feel absolutely no responsibility for the misuse of information."
Is a manual for murder necessary?
Publishers have the obligation to stand behind what they print. If they print material encouraging illegal acts, then they should hold themselves responsible for how readers interpret and act on the information.
This kind of responsibility would make publishers more cautious about what they print, and it could prevent people like Lund from feeling no guilt for printing material that taught someone how to commit murder.
the deaths of the Horns and their nurse probably would have occurred even if Paladin Press did not publish *Hit Man*. However, the chances that some other murders could have been prevented by the publishing this book, or others like it, probably is pretty good.
The argument of First Amendment rights should not be used in defense for the aiding and abetting of a homicide.
The world is already full of people who know how to commit murder. We don't need to teach anybody else.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Column about Dole not entirely accurate
During my years at the University of Kansas, I always realized the University Daily Kansan swayed to the left, but Ian Ritter's irresponsible, poorly researched, mean-spirited column on Bob Dole truly sets a new and low standard.
Anyone who understands history knows that no other Kansan — with the possible exception of Dwight D. Eisenhower — has ever done as much for the state as Bob Dole.
Ritter obviously does not know what he is writing about when he speaks of legislation Bob Dole has supported.
No other U.S. senator or member of Congress also has ever done as much for the University of Kansas.
However, the Republican budget does increase the volume of student loans by 50 percent, or $12 billion, by the year 2002.
The Republican budget does not cut general education by $10 billion.
In fact, this year alone, 500,000 more student loans will be issued than in 1995.
It is also unfortunate that Ritter does not educate what the telecommunications bill does before he uses it to write baseless smears about Bole Dole.
This bill, which was passed with
strong bipartisan support and signed by President Clinton, is aimed at reducing regulation and making the business of telecommunications more competitive.
The mysterious chip Ritter speaks of is a chip that will only be placed in television sets to allow parents — not the government — to screen what their children watch.
It is pathetic journalism when the only person Ritter contacts about Bob Dole's record is a member of KU Young Democrats.
It is unfortunate when the Kansan allows such a poorly researched column to grace its pages.
William Gist
1995 KU graduate
William Gist
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