From: [t--y] at [cfoxbchs.uh.edu] (Tony E Alvarez)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns
Subject: Police reaction to ban
Date: 8 May 1994 16:44:49 GMT

Houston Chronicle, Saturday May 7
Section A (Metropolitan), page 32
Police Beat, by S. K. Bardwell

quoted material follows:


'Sale' for Homicide Division

A statement faxed from the Harris County
Sheriff's Department to police reporters
Friday morning caught their attention by 
starting out : "The Homicide Division
would like to announce a going-out-of-business
sale."

After listing deals on typewriters, desks, 
a polygraph and more, the bulletin goes on
to explain, "Now that assault weapons are
banned and you have to wait five days to
purchase a handgun, there surely will be
no more murders in the county."

The tongue-in-cheek announcement also points
out that while there have been no killings this
year with assault weapons or with legally
purchased handguns, "there have been numerous
killings with the Lorcin .380 and the Raven
25," which are not banned.

The fax concludes with the sarcastic hope
that as guns are removed from our society, 
"maybe someday we will be as safe as Bosnia, 
Haiti, Somalia, Rwanda, and North Korea,"
where they don't have to worry about an
armed populace."


end quoted material


Par for the course.  Line officers know what they are talking
about - they are not concerned with ratings, social engineering,
or political wheeling and dealing.  Least of all are they 
concerned with ivory tower analyses.


I wonder what the House would have concluded if the testimony
on the gun-ban had come not from politically appointed
law enforcement heads, experts from HCI, the Bradys, etc
(and the Evil NRA) but from line officers and maybe even 
a few criminals, like someone suggested.


This article was tucked away in a small space in the Saturday
edition of a vehemently democrat anti-gun paper.  It is a 
pleasant surprise to see that it was printed at all.




--
Tony Alvarez