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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 15, 1994)
Opinion Thursday, September 15, 1994 Page 4 Nebraskan Editorial Board University of Nebraska-Lincoln .. !.Editor. 472-1766 . Opinion Page Editor .Managing Editor . Associate News Editor .. Columnist/Associate News Editor ..Photography Director .Copy Desk Chief ..Cartoonist kill I OKI \l And we’re out! Greed wins; players, owners snub fans The World Series made it through two world wars, but it couldn’t survive baseball players’ and owners’ greed. Wednesday afternoon, when interim commissioner Bud Selig announced that this year’s fall classic was being canceled because of the labor disagreement, he shattered decades of tradition and mystique surrounding America’s national pastime. 1994 will forever be known in history as the year the World Series was killed. A year that had a chance to be one of the most magical seasons in recent history will be remembered for nothing JeffZelenv.... Kara Morrison. Angie Brunkow. Jeffrey Robb . . . Rainbow Rowell Kilev Christian. Mike Lewis.... James Mehsling tuner man a lauui buuggic. And the way it looks now, the struggle may only have begun. Players and owners are miles apart. Even with the help of the United States government, they may not make it back in time to play the 1995 season. Maybe no one will notice. Both the players and the owners made a terrible mistake by alienating baseball fans. If the business people of baseball think the fans will forgive and forget, they are in for quite a surprise. Fans need to take a stand. If not for its fans, baseball would be nothing. Fans bring in all the revenue that is used to pay the multimillion-dollar salaries. After I 1/2 months of disagreement, it appears that the players and owners have lost sight of this. Fans, the lifeblood of the game, are being treated as if they don’t exist. Wednesday was the final straw. The season is one thing, but the World Series is sacred. Baseball’s future is in jeopardy, but people on both sides seem to care about no one but themselves. If the fans are committed to making a statement, upon the return of play, they need to welcome the game back with a cold shoulder. Maybe then, and only then, the players and owners would recognize the significance of Wednesday’s actions. Give a donation Wall will keep Harms memory alive Sunday marks the Candice Harms Memorial Committee’s first event to raise money for a commemorative wall at UNL. As a campus community who felt the loss and fear of Harms' abduction and violent death two years ago, the wall will remind us both of Harms and of our own vulnerability. The wall, which will be a 20-inch-high, 35-foot-long curve, will be built in the northwest comer of North Plaza Park on the Univer sity of Nebraska-Lincoln’s City Campus. Chancellor Graham Spanier said on Wednesday that although he wished a memorial wasn’t needed, he was glad Harms would be remembered and celebrated. The mayor and the county attorney encouraged students and citizens to make donations, and Harms’ mother, Pat, thanked all who remembered her daughter. As we try to make sense of such a loss and the seeming escala tion of violence in our community and country, it is easy to feel helpless and frustrated. Sunday’s fund-raiser for the memorial, a spaghetti feed from 5 . to 7 p.m. in the Nebraska Union, is one way we can help. I M 101(1 \l 1*01 l( \ Staff editorials represent the official policy of the Fall 1994 Daily Nebraskan Policy is set by the Daily Nebraskan Editorial Board. Editorials do not necessarily reflect the views of the university, its employees, the students or the NU Board of Regents Editorial columns represent the opinion of the author. The regents publish the Daily Nebraskan. They establish the UNL Publications Board to supervise the daily production of the paper According to policy set by the regents, responsibility for the editorial content of the newspaper lies solely in the hands of its students I I I 11 it I'm it \ The Daily Nebraskan welcomes brief letters to the editor from all readers and interested others. Letters will be selected for publication on the basis of clarity, originality, timeliness and space available. The Daily Nebraskan retains the right to edit or reject all material submitted Readers also are welcome to submit material as guest opinions. The editor decides whether material should run as a guest opinion. Letters and guest opinions sent to the newspaper become the property of the Daily Nebraskan and cannot be returned Anonymous submissions will not be published. Letters should included the author's name, year in school, major and group affiliation, if any. Requests to withhold names will not be granted Submit material to the Daily Nebraskan, 34 Nebraska Union, 1400 R St., Lincoln, Neb. 68588-0448 Y\0*1 'TvA'o'C ?fcNU-Y |\.P TOP 25 VOLL I t i 11 us i<> 1111 Him mu Arms a right According to Jim Senyszyn (DN, Sept. 9, 1994) “the vast majority of Americans do not understand ... the Second Amendment.” He is obviously correct. Mr. Senyszyn attempts to show how the Second Amendment applies only to “militia” and presumably not to citizens. A simple careful reading of the amendment will show its true meaning. The entire text of the Second Amendment reads, “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the PEOPLE to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” Notice that while the importance of the militia is stressed, it is not the militia’s right to keep and bear arms that is protected, but rather the people’s right. The term “militia” itself refers not to any highly organized body of standing military such as today's citizenry armed with their own personal weapons. At the time of the drafting of the Bill of Rights, the term “militia” was universally understood to include every able bodied free male. Therefore, the Second Amendment obviously was intended to protect the right of every able-bodied free male (and now female) citizen of the United States to own arms. Furthermore, the types of weapons it was meant to cover are military weapons, specifically the “assault weapons” Mr. Senyszyn and President ^ union seem so airaia ox. Additionally, I must question the statistics used in Mr. Senyszyn’s letter. He states an assault gun is 20 times more likely to be used in a crime than a conventional firearm, but the FBI's own crime statistics report “assault weapons" are used in less than 2 percent of all crimes in this country. As to how anyone defines what an “assault weapon" is, I don't know. As far as I'm concerned, any gun, knife or club used in an assault is an assault weapon. If I take the flash suppressor and bayonet lug off of my AR-15 and put in a 5-round magazine, does it then cease to be an assault weapon? If I affix a bayonet and install a 30 round magazine in my deer rifle, does it then become an assault weapon? The simple fact is that gun control laws of any kind do not work. Such laws have never reduced crime — anywhere. Washington, D.C., and New York City have some of the toughest gun control laws in the country, and they continue to have some of the highest crime rates. In neither city did the growth in the crime rate stop or even slow down after gun control laws were implemented. It is not coincidence that after the town of Morton Grove, III., completely banned the possession of handguns by law-abiding citizens, crime in that town" skyrocketed. Conversely, when the state of Florida recently made it much easier for private citizens with no criminal records to obtain concealed weapon permits, the rise in the Florida crime rate slowed appreciably. Criminals there are so afraid their potential victims might now be able to fight back that they have given up much of their criminal activity. I applaud all efforts to reduce crime in this country, but let's not waste our time and money on efforts that historically have never worked and will limit the freedoms and liberties of the citizens of this once-free nation. _ . Brian Allen graduate student manufacturing systems engineering O- 4 Bret Gottshall/DN XT Population policy In response to what Mr. (Shane) Tucker (DN, Sept. 13, 1994) thinks about population policy and the 1994 World Population Conference: 1) By the year 2050, the world’s population will reach 8.5 billion people. When you consider that only about 11 percent of the earth's surface is suitable for sustainable agricultural production, that’s an awful lot of mouths to feed. Even if the South American rain forests that you vaguely refer to are plowed under, they could only yield crops for less than 30 years, fto you rqaHy think there will be enough to go around? 2) The claim of Paul Waggoner (an agricultural economist) that the earth could support 1,000 billion (I trillion) people seems a bit far fetched. Even if this is possible, what quality of life would exist? Could individuals deal with the pressures of this immense over crowding? Come on. 3) Finally, you use Mr. Forbes' (another economist) example of Hong Kong as a densely populated area that has had great economic success. You overlook the fact that the vast majority of the money made there doesn’t stay there and that they have to import everything. If the planet were this densely populated and depleted, where would we import our resources from? Hong Kong is the exception and not the rule. One only needs to look at the decrepit shape that Mexico City is in to see this. You would have us keep blind faith in the ability of earth’s future generations to cope with population pressures. This isn’t the answer. David Averill senior environmental studies, sociology ‘Keep your day job’ I’d like to extend a heartfelt con gratulations to Shane Tucker on his column (DN, Sept. 13, 1994). You used all the right terms, Shane: “Malthusian connection,” “misguided belief,” “feminist ideologies," etc. Very nice. Unfortunately, all those terms, coupled with phrases like “Algore in-tne-balance” and “vestiges ot fas cism,” just made me giggle. Did you attend the Rush Limbaugh School of Catch Phrases or Name-the-Conve nience-Store Tech? Face it, Mr. Tucker: People don’t listen to fanatics who take themselves too seriously (unless, as in my case, it’s for sheer comic relief). Take a year off, go find your deeper “Malthusian connection,” and please, Mr. Tucker, don’t quit your day job. April Block graduate student music education
