[Newspoetry] Saturday at noon by OJC

[Joe Futrelle]

On Fri, Nov 12, 1999 at 11:47:05AM -0600, David Young wrote:
> ... 3-106(G) also helps to make persons
> affected by the criminal justice system into non-citizens before the
> law and other citizens, just like laws that abridge affected persons'
> right to vote and to own firearms.

I'm uncomfortable with this gloss.  Vote is a powerful democratic tool
which we should protect.  Arming yourself is not, unless you buy the
same kind of deterrence arguments which underpin the nuclear arms race
and the death penalty.  For instance, we're told Ahmed Diallo was shot
because the NYPD officers thought he had a gun.  To solve this, don't
arm Diallo, disarm the cops.  The NRA tells us that if we outlaw guns
only criminals will have guns; that is true except that shooting
someone can make a criminal out of you.

_joe