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daily nebraskan
tuesday, january 13, 1981
ah
Bullet bill deadly solution for high-speed chases
One of the most barbaric ideas ever aired in
the Legislature is Sen. John DeCamp's suggest
ion to arm law enforcement officers with
armor-piercing bullets.
That proposal, contained in a legislative bill
sponsored by the Neligh senator to stop high
speed chases, portrays a dangerous and fright
ening element of American society. Hopefully
this view of militaristic police authority is not
popular with a large segment of the population.
People who adhere to this weapon lunacy
must believe that giving police and state patrol
officers another trigger to pull can solve any
law enforcement problem they may encounter.
According to DeCamp, the steel-plated
bullets would pierce the engine block of a car,
causing it to slow down.
The senator apparently thinks it would be
safer for an officer wielding a gun while chasing
a fleeing person at high speeds to aim higher
than would be done with the previous method
of shooting at one of the vehicle's tires. Since
most squad cars are behind fleeing vehicles dur
ing high-speed chases, one of these bullets also
would have to follow a strange trajectory to
pierce the engine block of a car.
DeCamp also maintains that the armor
piercing bullets wouldn't kill people because
they don't spread out like lead-case ammunit
ion. Although there aren't many similarities be
tween human flesh and engine blocks, it seems
logical to assume that an errant bullet with
enough force behind it to pierce armor could,
and probably would, seriously injure or kill a
person.
The senator says he learned of this way to
slow down a car while he was in Vietnam,
which further adds to the idiocy of the suggest
ion. As if the atrocities of that war weren't bad
enough, DeCamp now wants to bring these
tactics to the streets and highways of Nebraska.
Some parts of the bill designed to stop high
speed chases are logical and workable pro
posals. It's too bad they are overshadowed by
the armor-piercing bullet idea, which could
make driving a car or walking down a street
comparable to venturing through a mine field.
DeCamp already has been quoted as saying
critics of the bill and the media are emphasiz
ing an unimportant aspect of the bill in pub
licizing the bullet suggestion. Obviously he
doesn't realize the potential danger which
would result if this ammunition became
standard equipment for law enforcement
agencies.
Making the penalty for fleeing from an
officer more severe and offering better training
in ways for law enforcement officers to deal
with high-speed chases should be encouraged.
By doing this, the legislators would be serving
the citizens of Nebraska by helping find a
solution, rather than by going out of their way
to compound the problem.
Daily Nebraskan
sets letter policy
The Daily Nebraskan encourages brief letters to the
editor from all readers and interested parties.
Letters will be selected for publication on the basis
of clarity, originality, timeliness and space available in
the newspaper.
Letters sent to the newspaper for publication be
come the property of the Daily Nebraskan and cannot
be returned.
The Daily Nebraskan reserves the right to edit and
condense all letters submitted.
Readers also are welcome to submit material as
guest opinions, subject to the editor's decision to print
or not to print the material, either as a letter or as a
guest opinion.
Anonymous submissions will not be considered for
publication, and requests to withhold names will be
granted only in exceptional circumstances.
Submit all material to the Daily Nebraskan, Room
34. Nebraska Union, 1400 R St., Lincoln, Neb. 68588.
Fashion aims sights on guns
The inside scoop on fashion this year can be summariz
ed in one word: weapons.
Never mind what you may have heard about hemlines,
or slacks, or preppie sweaters, collars, shoes, or hair styles,
the whispered word is that anybody who is anybody will
be sporting a handgun in 1981.
1 first got wind of this turn of events in conversation
with my tailor, Cosmo of Waverly.
"This is the most exciting thing that has happened to
fashion in years," he said. "It all started with Nancy
Reagan, God bless her, and the little handgun she carries
in her purse. You just knew when that piece of news came
out that everyone was going to be following her lead and
buying handguns to carry around. But why should they be
stuck with the same old steel pistols that one could pick
up in any pawn shop, when so much more can be done to
give a handgun that little flair, that personal message that
literally says. 'I'm dressed to kill'."
dark
UPSP 144-080
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"What kind of fashion handguns should we expect to
see this year?" I asked, though not completely sure I
wanted to know.
"That's the beauty of the designer handguns," he said.
"You are likely to see as many different ideas as there are
designers. Nobody has any preconceived notions of what a
designer handgun should look like, what materials and
colors to use, so we should see some truly unique instru
ments of destruction."
"Could you be more specific?"
"I can tell you about my own creations. I see the
designer handgun-look as an extension of the whole urb
an cowboy thing that was so chic last year. I'm taking
some of those blue jeans out of here to make room for a
couple of gun racks. Something very Texan, maybe
made out of hand-carved longhorns or something. For
the actual weapons, I'm thinking of leather; leather hol
sters, lots of fringe and scrollwork. I think it's a can't
miss proposition, because it feeds right into that kind of
range-rider, vigilante image that Ronald Reagan has been
projecting since the election. You know, with the trips
out to the ranch to chop wood and mend fences. I'm
staking my whole reputation on the Lethal Leather
Look for 1981"
"Do you know what anybody else is doing?"
"Oh, I have a few ideas from some sources . .
"You mean spies?"
"A harsh word, but it might fit. Anyway, the word I
get from New York is that some designers there will go
the punk route, with lots of rusty, metallic accents and
rubber-tipped bullets. A dark horse to watch out for is
Pierre of South Dakota. He's working on something
completely new that he calls the MX Handbag System."
"Sounds pretty strange," I said, starting to look for
an exit.
"It is," said Cosmo. "It's for women who travel in
groups. The system is composed of nine handbags, all
identical except for one very significant detail. One of the
handbags contains a small but notoriously deadly nuclear
warhead, while the others are empty. The prtential purse
snatcher, of course, will not know which ot the handbags
contains the warhead. If he can get the Dallas Cowboy
cheerleaders outfitted with his system, he could rise
right to the top of the industry.
"I'm telling you, Nancy Reagan came along and saved
the fashion business single-handedly. There are only so
many things you can do with fabrics and hemlines and
collars, and she has given us whole new fields to explore.
No more inseams for me; caliber is what everyone is talk
ing now. The Annie Hall look is dead forever, the Annie
Oakley look has just arrived."
Carter surrender
is insulting offer
WASH IN TON On election eve, Tehran issued its ran
som terms for the hostages in a message as crude and in
sulting as any the United States government ever accept
ed. Had Carter responded as Theodore Roosevelt or Harry
Truman would have, he would not have received the 44
state humiliation at the polls.
ucnanan
(But no third-rate nation would have sent such a mes
sage to TR or Truman)
On Nov. 1 1 the Carter administration did respond
total capitulation to the Ayatollah's terms.
Carter agreed never again to interfere in Iran's affairs,
to unfreeze Iran's assets, to ship off S2.5 billion from the
New York Federal Reserve Bank, to join Iran in battling
claims against remaining assets, to lift economic sanctions
and resume normal commercial transactions (would this
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