-Caveat Lector- ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- Date sent: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 12:19:13 -0500 From: "Jeff Taylor" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Reason Express List Member <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Reason-Express: REx22, v2 Welcome to Reason Express, the weekly e-newsletter from Reason magazine. Reason Express is written by Washington-based journalist Jeff A. Taylor and draws on the ideas and resources of the Reason editorial staff. For more information on Reason, visit our Web site at www.reason.com. Send your comments about Reason Express to Jeff A. Taylor ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) and Virginia Postrel ([EMAIL PROTECTED]). REASON Express June 1, 1999 Vol. 2 No. 22 1) Gun Suits March On 2) The Columbine Backlash Continues 3) FCC Votes for Fat, New Phone Tax 4) Quick Hits - - California Reaming - - Gun suit mania spread to California last week as several cities announced plans to sue gun makers. Los Angeles and San Francisco are spearheading the move, which builds on the efforts of about a dozen other jurisdictions. The hope is that gun makers will cave to demands for damages to "recover" police and medical costs associated with gun use rather than risk letting the case go before a jury. Sacramento, Oakland, and Berkeley were expected to join San Francisco's suit while Compton, Inglewood, and Los Angeles County also were considering suits. The Los Angeles city suit goes after more than 40 gun manufacturers along with dealers and firearms trade groups. In doing so, the suit uses the theory that gun makers purposely "oversupply" some segments of the gun market in order to drum up black market sales. "Basically, the gun makers supply the illegal underground market by flooding the legal market with far more guns than it can absorb," city attorney James Hahn argued. But this approach assumes gun makers--or any sellers--have perfect knowledge and substantial control of the market they serve. If such a fallacy becomes a standard part of American jurisprudence, more than just gun makers will suffer. http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/gunlawsuits990525.html Check out the updated Reason Online Breaking Issue "Suing Gun Makers" at http://www.reason.com/bi/guns.html ************************************************************* - - When In Doubt--Suspend - - If history is a guide "Columbine hysteria" will soon be a recognized term. If there is any justice it won't refer to mass murder, but to over-reaction by public school administrators. There are now dozens of cases across the country in which students, some still in elementary school, have been disciplined because they were perceived to be a threat. A 12-year-old in Louisiana wound up spending two weeks in a juvenile detention center over a verbal dispute that started with lunch-line taunts. A 14-year-old girl from Harrisburg, Pa., was strip-searched and suspended for two weeks from her school because she told her classmates she could understand how the Columbine shooters felt. A 9-year-old boy in Virginia was given an in-school suspension for waving his drawing of a gun in class. Elsewhere in Virginia, a high school student was suspended for having blue hair. That suspension followed a call by Gov. James S. Gilmore III (R) for a crackdown on unusual activities by students after the Columbine shootings. School administrators explained that the student "may not return to school until the blue color has been removed and his hair color is within the color range deemed acceptable by the Surry County School Board." And high school students in West Columbia, S.C., were questioned by police who wanted to know if a chemistry textbook was for bomb-making. The common theme in all these cases is an almost willful stupidity exercised by bureaucrats with no real oversight or accountability. There is no sure way to cleanse a system so rotten that it would cough up such absurdities. But one good step might be a kind of voucher system which would allow parents, when confronted with such numbskullery in their midst, to opt to send their children elsewhere. Perhaps someplace where "the color range deemed acceptable" is more vibrant, varied, and alive. http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-05/27/110l-052799-idx.html Jacob Sullum looked at private attempts to give kids a way out of bad schools at http://www.reason.com/sullum/050499.html Nick Gillespie looked at how schools alienate the very students they seek to educate at http://www.reason.com/opeds/nick050599.html ************************************************************** - - Phone Sense - - As expected, the Federal Communications Commission voted to expand the subsidy schools and libraries receive for Internet services. The FCC voted 3-2 to claim the maximum $2.25 billion allowed by law for the program. The fight against the surcharge has been little helped by the now universal use of the name "Gore tax" for it. The truth is the tax is a creature of a Republican Congress, which is now desperate to shift blame. Al Gore at least takes credit for the beastie--then again he takes credit for most things. Perhaps the intention was for the FCC to be more secretive in implementing the tax, or simply to take a smaller bite. But there is no dispute that Congress intended somebody to foot the bill for below-market access to the Internet. Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth voted against the measure and has fought it every step of the way. "Every billion dollars of direct fees is $10 per household, per year in America," Furchtgott-Roth said. "You pay for it through higher phone rates." But Furchtgott-Roth, a former Republican staffer on the House Commerce Committee, cannot offend his congressional patrons by laying responsibility for the mess on their shoulders. Even so, there is a move afoot which would try to substitute existing telephone excise tax revenues for the program. That would at least be more transparent and limit FCC influence in the program. But make no mistake, it would still be high-tech pork. http://www.techserver.com/story/body/0,1634,53446-85652-608140-0,00.html http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/19907.html Virginia Postrel says Silicon Valley's push to increase federal R&D spending is just more pork at http://www.forbes.com/asap/99/0531/127.htm ************************************************************* QUICK HITS - - Quote of the Week - - "It is not really funny when you have to air-dry. It is a health hazard when you don't have toilet paper," Detroit City Councilwoman Kay Everett on the police department's failure to stock toilet paper. Some officers were forced to bring their own from home. The department failed to pay its TP bills and vendors stopped delivery. http://www.freep.com/news/locway/qtp26.htm - - Who You Callin' Lady? - - The Minnesota Department of Children, Families, and Learning is forcing state schools to drop "lady" from girls' sports team nicknames. Next up, mandatory attendance at all wome..gir..fem...--you know--games. http://www.startribune.com/stOnLine/cgi-bin/article?thisSlug=lady29 - - Le Phone Tap - - The European Parliament passed a directive which would require European Internet service providers to allow law enforcement real-time access to Internet, telephony, and wireless communications. ISPs also have to pay for the access. http://www.europemedia.com/emeu/18_May_1999.shtml http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB19990513S0009 - - Boomerang - - The Australian drive to ban adult content from Aussie ISPs took a surprise hit when one adult site operator revealed that over 4,300 people used government Internet connections to find porn during the workday. http://www.theregister.co.uk/990528-000030.html - - Correction - - Last week's Reason Express incorrectly identified Connecticut Gov. John Rowland (R) as the governor of Delaware. ############################################################## REASON NEWS Sign up for notification by e-mail of Reason media appearances and Reason events by sending a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "notify" in the subject line. To find out only about appearances in your area (or nationally), include your zip code. This week's edition of Reason Express appears on Tuesday due to the Memorial Day holiday. ############################################################## Reason Express is made possible by a grant from The DBT Group (www.dbtgroup.com), manufacturers of affordable, high-performance mainframe systems and productivity software. Current Circulation: 2994 We encourage you to forward Reason Express. If you received this issue from a forward, please subscribe. 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