Police U$e of expanding bullet questioned
Police departments across the country are
switching to a hollow-point or expanding
bullet very similar to the "dumdum bullets"
outlawed at the first Hague Peace Confer
ence in 1899. Ironcially; the United States
was not a part to that conference declaration
becauseyts delegates wanted a more severe
bullet limitation adopted.; . ...
The use of expanding1 bullets by police
forces seems unnecessarily devastating and
inhumane. The buliet has the dumdum
bullet's characteristic ability to expand on
hitting the target, often tearing an unusually
large hole In its victim. ;
The U.S. Army Field Manual prohibits the
use of such expanding ammunition because it
causes unnecessary suffering.
However, numerous state and city police
departments, as well as five out of six federal
agencies, have changed .'to the hollow-point
ammunition from the traditional, and less
destructive, round-nosed bullets, according
to a survey made by The Christian Science
Monitor this summer.
Hollow-point bullets are issued to agents of
such agencies as the Federal Bureau of
Investigation, Internal Revenue Service.
Drug Enforcement Administration, Secret
Service and U.S. Customs.
The Lincoln Police Dept. has used the
hollow-point bullet for about six years,
according to Lt. Gene Armstead, planning
officer.
Those police departments which have
opted for the hollow-point ammunition from ,
Dallas to Lincoln to Seattle defend it largely
on grounds of greater "stopping power" or
"knock down capability."
They add that the bullet is less inclined to
ricochet, or to pass through a target, thus
reducing the risk of hitting bystanders.
Another argument used in favor of the
hollow-point bullet is that, because a police
handgun is used only as a last resort and then
with intent to kill, the severity of the wound is
irrelevant.
But the definition of "last resort varies
enormously from one police force to another,
and frequently, that definition seems too
encompassing. And, too often, panic can
induce an officer to use a. more destructive
weapon than actually is necessary.
The American Civil Liberties Union
rightfully contends that the policeman's
objective in resorting to a gun should not be
so much to kill as to immobilize by hitting the
target in the middle.
Using expanding bullets almost insures
that any bystander hit by a misplaced shot
either will be killed or seriously hurt.
So it's thatweapons which nationsoutlaw in
war are not outlawed in this nation's streets.
Banning the use of expanding bullets by
police forces and other agencies would be a
beginning toward de-escalating armed vio
lence in this country.
Jane Owens
Things
sure could
be worse'
Reading Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's bestselling text on
Russian prison camps, The Gulag Archipelago, while
America is trying to decide whether or not former
.President Richard Nixon should stand trial is an
interesting experience.
If nothing else, one's bound to come out of it saying,
"Thank God, Nixon's Nixon and not Joseph Stalin, and
this istheU.S., not.theU.S.S.R.!" .
But comparing the life and hard crimes of Stalin and
his NKVD (Soviet secret police) with the deeds of Nixon
and his aides can lead one beyond the statement,
"Things sure could be worse," to some serious
thoughts about justice.
Critics of the 1973 Watergate hearings, for example,,
call them a farce.
Farce? What about the theatrical "Moscow trials" of
the 1930s? When seven million Russians from party
leaders to peasants, and most of them innocent were
tried, convicted and sentenced on phony charges and
made-up evidence, all based on a Secret Criminal Codej
no one ever saw (or dared to question).
By comparison, it took a year and a half of tiring
debate over the same four words, "high crimes and
misdemeanors," and some 55 volunes of tape-recorded
evidence, to take even a vote on Nixon. And that on
whether this one man even should be brought to trial.
, Defendants in Stalin's trials, like putty in his hands,
confessed to crimes they'd never even heard
of:"Dumfounded, the world watched . . .expensive
dramatic productions in which the powerful leaders of
the fearless Communist Party . . . now marched forth
like doleful obedient goats and bleated out everything
they had been ordered to . . . and confessed to crimes
they could not in any wise have committed."
Nixon, against an ever-Skeptical public, stubbornly
kept to his line, "I'm innocent," right up to his
resignation.
For sending millions to death or animal-like torture in
prison camps, the deranged Stalin lived to old age and
died a national hero.
; For saying swear words on tape and hiding the truth
to save his own skin (both human reactions), an
American president can be harrassed, bullied and
subpoenaed out of office as Public Enemy No. 1 .
: "How long are you going to continue to have people
shot?" a reporter once asked Stalin.
"Just as long as I have to."
How long will the American public keep after the
former president?
' At the same time a Russian under censorship risks
his life to print the cruelties of arbbitrary justice, you'll
see comments like these running loose in America:
"Nixon ouoht to be hung by his thumbs." '
"I think Nixon and Agnew ought to be lined up against
tlio went cm iu dodaooii taiou.
nancy sfohsj
oconcJ thoua!
Harmless? Maybe, but consult Solzhenitsyn about
really being hung by the thumbs; it's bound to be in
there somewhere with the rubber truncheon beating
and needles under the fingernails.
Kind of all leaves in one's mouth a foul aftertaste of
too much milk and honey . . . spoiled by our freedoms?
But more broadly, it leaves one with the idea that
true justice anyone's brand is. of necessity, objec
tive. Impersonal impartial, objective.
A fragile concept not to be distorted or bent by
dictators or obstructed unlawfully by presidents. But
neither should it be abused by a powerful,
self-righteous public opinion machine sitting in
judgment.
1 "If only it were so simple!" Solzhenitsyn writes. "If
only there were evil people insidiously committing evil
deeJu, and it were necessary only to separate them
from the rest of us and destroy them.
"But the line of good and cvii cuts through the heart
and soul of all of us. And who is willing to destroy a
piece of his own heart?"
And if that docsn'.t hit home, take heart that it's still
true: Things could be a lot worse.
Charity toward all
amnesty necessary
Editor's note Jim Baiters is a senior majoring
in psychology and zoology:
By Jim Baiters
"With malice towards none, with charity
towards all." Abraham Lincoln hoped to reunite
the United States after the American Civil War
with those words. Would anyone call that an
idealistic statement? I hope not.
America has vanquished the enemy regularly
throughout its history whenever there was a call to
arms." Not too long ago Americans were. overly
generous in-helpingthe former foe rebuild and
-start ovex-asjf nothina.had happened .: , .'
On the eve of his asking Congress for a
declaration fo war against Germany, Woodrow
Wilson, often classified as an idealist, remarked
that once a people are led into war, they forget
there ever was such a thing as tolerance.
However, it seems to apply to Americans only
when they don't win. The United States didn't
trounce the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese
as its various commander-in-chiefs said it would.
America didn't win that war. Many feel that it
lost that it lost badly. Because it didn't win, the
United States has not offered to help in the
rebuilding of Indochina.
America has found itself unable to welcome its
sons and brothers back home because they were
men of conscience. They were men of the caliber
of Washington and Jefferson and every other
founding father and revolutionary who realized
that only by dissenting could they live with
themselves. To immediately forgive the Japanese,-
Germans and Italians after World War
II people who actually waged war against the
United States and not to reaccept a group of
countrymen who refused to wage war against a
people who posed no threat to America shows a
twisted morality.
My brother was killed in Vietnam in 1967. He
wasn't drafted, and I don't know just why he
joined. From what he told and wrote me, I really
don't think he thought it was America he was
fighting for.
n
He didn't fight out of superpatriotism rny
brother knew Lyndon Johnson was a liar. My
brother fought and he died, and I can't find it in
me to be angry with anyone who refused to answer
his country's "call."
I just wish they could come home because this
country doesn't need the assorted criminals which
once composed the federal and various state
governments before these sycophants recently
were flushed away.
Men and women strong enough to answer the
call of their conscience are the ones America noeds
and the ones America cannot afford to lose. This
includes those who truly felt it was in the best
interest of America to fight in Vietnam,
Let the war-evaders come home completely
free. One might argue that it wouldn't be fair to
the families of those who died, but the best thing
to do for the relatives of those killed is to put this
war totally behind us. This can't be done when a
segment of our country is forced unjustly to live in
exile. For this we need not malice only charity
pags4
.daily nebraskan
thursday, Septembers, 1974