Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/375559
GregStevens,Publisher Chip Thompson, Editor EDITORIALBOARD How to have your say: Letters must be signed and provide the writer's home street address and home phone number. Anonymous letters, open letters to others, pen names and petition-style letters will not be allowed. Letters should be typed and no more than two double-spaced pages or 500words. When several letters address the same issue, a cross section will be published. Email: editor@red bluffdailynews.com Phone: 530-527- 2151ext. 112 Mail to: P.O. Box 220, 545 Diamond Ave., Red Bluff, CA 96080 Facebook: Leave comments at FACEBOOK.COM/ RBDAILYNEWS Twitter: Follow and send tweets to @REDBLUFFNEWS Thenewsmademany Americans do a double-take. Wait a minute: this news story says a 9-year-old girl acciden- tally killed her gun instruc- tor while he was teaching her to use...an Uzi? An Uzi?! One of those Israeli-designed com- pact sub automatic machine guns? That gun that can fire 600 rounds per minute? It just had to be a bad joke. But it wasn't a joke. It was a tragedy — and a sign of the times. "All right, full-range auto," the AP reports instructor Charles Vacca, a 39-year-old Army veteran, told an un- named girl during a session on how to use an Uzi. The gun's kickback, apparently surpris- ing the little girl, then shot Vacca through the head. And so it goes: two families now devastated, and a young girl now destined for therapy ses- sions for years. What happened next (sigh) fit the usual pattern. The media ran reaction sto- ries — the family of the victim reached out to the girl and said they felt sorry for her... out- raged gun control advocates... some gun rights folks stick- ing to their guns on gun regu- lation... the owner of the shoot- ing range expressing regret. A deja vu 2008 story surfaced about 8-year-old Christopher Bizilj, of Conn. who shot him- self dead in the head while try- ing an Uzi at a gun show with his parents' permission. The NRA responded with an NRA Women tweet offer- ing seven ways kids could have fun with guns. Groupon sold Uzi target practice. News re- ports chronicled the burgeon- ing industry of gun tourism, where people from here and abroad sign up to visit ranges and shoot all kinds of guns. What has happened? Ameri- ca's gun culture — a culture in place in various incarnations for a long time — has now changed drastically from what it was just 20 years ago. Some of it may be due to the way de- fending absolute gun rights has become co-opted by ideol- ogy and partisanship, by big bucks to be had by gun orga- nizations and the political en- tertainment media that push hot buttons on this issue, and by a generational shift. The Greatest Generation that fought and won World War II is quickly leaving the earth. My late father, Richard Gandelman, on several occasions let his sons and daughter fire a rifle. One of his favorite jokes was that if you turned the U.S. on its side and shook it, all the nuts would land in California. But when it came to teaching firearms, he was anything but nutty. You re- spected the rifle. If you shot a target, the idea wasn't using a gun, the idea was testing your skill to carefully try to hit a tar- get with a fearsome weapon. The issue now isn't what kind of parent would let their young child use, even super- vised, an Uzi. It's what has hap- pened the past two decades to make it seemingly fashionable to shoot an Uzi on a range and suggest it's a child's right — at even an older age — to do so. Once again New Yorker sat- irist Andy Borowitz nailed it. In a fictional interview with a pollster about the raging issue of letting kids learn how to use military weapons: "Much like the long-running national de- bates about jumping off a roof, licking electrical sockets and gargling with thumbtacks, the vexing question of whether chil- dren should fire military weap- ons does not appear headed for a swift resolution." Today, there are more stringent rules for kids who might want to try flying an airplane, driving a car or rid- ing a rollercoaster than they are for kids who want to try an Uzi at a shooting range. There are no federal laws covering children's access to guns. Young kids being allowed to shoot Uzis and defending it, as if the constitution guaranteed the right of kids to try a sub automatic weapon as part and parcel with life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? All of this would likely be dismay- ing to many of departed mem- bers of The Greatest Genera- tion, particularly its veterans. My father would probably want to revise his joke: This time it seems like the nuts are scattered all over the country. JoeGandelmanisaveteran journalist. He can be reached at jgandelman@themoderat- evoice.com. Joe Gandelman Libertyandthe right of a child to fire an Uzi You respected the rifle. If you shot a target, the idea wasn't using a gun, the idea was testing your skill to carefully try to hit a target with a fearsome weapon. Cartoonist's take I recently published two sto- ries about outspoken, commit- ted socialists: one, an active member of the Industrial Work- ers of the World running for U.S. Senate and the other a self-de- scribed Marxist college profes- sor leading a movement urging the federal government to regu- late the Internet. While the facts I cited were undisputed, the left nonetheless reacted with at- tacks on me personally, on the organization I run, and on peo- ple they presume are our donors — which just proves how impor- tant it is to assure the privacy of our actual donors and protect them from such attacks. Socialism has always in- spired ideological people, mostly young, with wonderful aspira- tions. But it came to be seen as a pejorative for very good reasons; it was proven theoretically un- workable because of the knowl- edge problem, and it was tried in practice with calamitous re- sults. A system of centralized eco- nomic control is simply incom- patible with basic human free- dom. It should be within the bounds of polite political dis- course to point out dangerous, extremist views. But in the cur- rent environment, it provokes a backlash. When Amanda Curtis was nominated by the Montana Democratic Party to replace dis- graced plagiarist John Walsh on the ballot for U.S. Senate, I checked to see whether she had a public Facebook page where I could learn more about her. What I found was shocking. Less than two weeks earlier, she has tagged herself in a pic- ture featuring Industrial Work- ers of the World (IWW) banners and identifying herself as a "Fel- low Worker," the term used in IWW for group members. Her husband Kevin Curtis is a leader of the state IWW, known as the Two Rivers General Membership Branch. The group's mission? "We are working to organize the peo- ple of Montana into the One Big Union to end wage slavery and eventually end the capitalist sys- tem." Did the media care? Not much. CNN did ask the cam- paign about it deep in a story for their website, and the con- servative Washington Free Bea- con covered the story, but that was about it. The Huffington Post, which didn't see Curtis's radical affilia- tion as worth reporting, took me to task for pointing it out. Their reporter Ryan Grim asked: "Are you really trying to red bait somebody in 2014? That's fun- nier than it is anything else." I asked if I got any facts wrong, and he said: "I don't think so." I thought red-baiting involved false allegations. But this was nothing com- pared to the angry reaction when I emailed conservatives about our StopInternetRegula- tion.org petition to oppose ef- forts by liberal activists to have the Federal Communications Commission reclassify the Inter- net as a public utility. I accurately identified the in- tellectual leader of the regu- late-the-internet effort as Robert McChesney, an avowed Marxist college professor who founded the advocacy group Free Press. I accurately quoted McChesney saying: "In the end, there is no real answer but to remove brick by brick the capitalist system it- self, rebuilding the entire society on socialist principles." For this I was accused of "disinformation and fearmon- gering," was called a "fascist," and was told: "You will not be missed when you die." (When I told the gentleman who made the last comment my wife and three kids would miss me, he disputed that, too.) The ultraliberal Daily Kos website even ran a story that hi- lariously attacked us for claim- ing the left wants to reduce the Internet to a public utility — while a call-to-action overlay on the page promoted a petition to President Obama... to turn the Internet into a public utility. On the left, supporting even the most radical and extreme ideas will result in no repercus- sions. On the right, people will be viciously attacked, vilified, and intimidated into silence. I'd list some of the places that pos- sibility reminds me of, but that would only get me accused of more red-baiting. Phil Kerpen is the president of American Commitment and the author of "Democracy Denied." He can be reached at phil@ americancommitment.org. Phil Kerpen Ditch the red-baiting and don't dare call them socialists Another view By Joe Guzzardi Another meaningless Labor Day has passed. For most Amer- icans, the holiday represents a day off from work and the unof- ficial end of summer. Many at- tended local parades where they heard November election candi- dates pledge to create jobs. Pres- ident Obama, in Wisconsin, said that under his direction, the economy has never been better. Obama pointed to the rigged 6.2 percent July unemployment rate as evidence. Talk about misleading. The Democratic Party and labor un- ions, once champions of United States' workers, have joined forces in an attempt to muscle through a comprehensive immi- gration reform bill or an exec- utive amnesty that would dev- astate American workers. If Obama and the unions get their way, as many as five million il- legal immigrants would be given a reprieve from deporta- tion and granted work permits. Unions are among the most active amnesty lobbyists, re- peatedly advocating for aliens at the expense of struggling Americans. Last week the AFL- CIO traveled to Washington to plead for what it called illegal immigrants' rights. Several al- iens testified about what they described as indignities suf- fered on the job site. Although the federal law prohibits aliens from working and employers from hiring them, more than 8 million illegal immigrants hold jobs. For an unemployed Amer- ican, that an alien may be per- forming a job he's capable of doing is the ultimate indignity. Despite President Oba- ma's pontificating about am- nesty's perceived benefits, the last thing that the U.S. needs is more workers. Ample, ir- refutable evidence shows that too many Americans are un- employed or struggling in low wage jobs to justify expanding the labor force. A recent Wall Street Journal analysis found that more than one in six men ages 25 to 54, prime working years, don't have a job, about 10.5 million. Certain worker groups for whom the White House professes compassion would be the most adversely af- fected. First, 14 million unem- ployed, disabled Americans would like to find a job but can't. Second, returning veter- ans can land security positions that pay from $9-$12 hourly, but can't secure higher paying jobs with a career path. Those with the bleakest fu- tures are African-Americans, Hispanics, and the less edu- cated. Anyone with some com- bination of the three, for exam- ple an African-American with only a high school education, is particularly vulnerable. Between 1990 and 2010, le- gal and illegal immigration in- creased the overall labor sup- ply by 10.6 percent and by 26 percent the number of workers without a high school educa- tion. Cuban-born Harvard econ- omist George Borjas estimates that immigration costs working Americans $402 billion annu- ally in lost wages and, in a clas- sic example of wealth redistri- bution, gives a corresponding gain to U.S. employers of immi- grants. According to the latest available Bureau of Labor Sta- tistics data, more than 22 mil- lion foreign-born workers are in the labor market. They earned, on average, 23 percent less than their American counterparts, $598 a week versus $771. Hundreds of thousands of unemployed Americans could be working as soon as next year if the administration set rea- sonable immigration quotas. Since 2000, more legal immi- grants have come to the U.S. than at any time in the nation's history including the Great Wave. Currently, the U.S. ad- mits nearly 1 million perma- nent residents annually and issues about 750,000 guest worker visas, job-killers for un- employed Americans. To ac- company reduced immigration totals, Congress should man- date E-Verify to remove aliens from jobs they illegally hold and thereby create openings for Americans. Reducing immigration would protect Americans' jobs. But Capitol Hill could care less about citizens' best interests. Instead the White House and most of Congress is irration- ally determined to promote an agenda that rewards unlawful entrants with work permits. Joe Guzzardi is a Californians for Population Stabilization Se- nior Writing Fellow whose col- umns have been syndicated since 1987. Contact him at jo- eguzzardi@capsweb.org. Ob ama d oe sn 't c ar e a bo ut w or ker s OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Thursday, September 4, 2014 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A6