Handgun surcharge urged for research

GOAL ^ | March 15, 2007 | Suzanne Smalley, Globe Staff

[fishhound]

MacArthur Williams was shot in Roxbury as he changed a tire on his Hyundai so he could go to work the next day. The man who shot him on that September night in 1989 was looking for revenge in a gang dispute, Williams said.

The gunshot paralyzed Williams, now a father of four living in Dorchester. Yesterday, he was among advocates and paralysis patients who urged state legislators to impose a $25 surcharge on all handgun purchases in Massachusetts to fund spinal cord injury research, so that one day he might walk again.

"It's a privilege to own a gun," Williams said in an interview yesterday. "The surcharge, if you know it's going toward research for a problem caused by gun violence, most people wouldn't have a problem."

A man paralyzed in a motorcycle accident while serving as a Boston police cadet in 1995 and other advocates also appeared in their wheelchairs before the Legislature's Joint Committee on Health Care Financing to emphasize how critical it is to raise more money for spinal cord research.

Dr. Eric Ruby, a Taunton pediatrician who is leading the effort, said that despite world-class medical talent, Massachusetts lags far behind some other states in funding for such research.

A committee member asked Williams whether legal gun owners, who would pay the fee, are the same people who are shooting others on Boston streets.

[fishhound]

I hope your wrong. But this place has a strange sense of justice and rights.

[Disturbin]

"I have heard that, in Boston, every application for a carry permit is denied and that they are only given on the appeal."

In Boston (and Brookline, as far as I know), you have to pass a marksmanship test in order to be considered for a license to carry. And then it's still up to the discretion of the chief of police.

[Disturbin]

I see, so a gang member is shot by another gang member and I should have to pay a $25 tax per handgun for spinal cord research?

Boy, that logic flows like rocks through a coffee filter.

[archy]

It's a privilege to own a gun,"

Then it's a privilege to print newspapers like the Boston Globe. A $25 surcharge on each copy of every newspaper sold might be a good thing too.

[archy]

Boy, that logic flows like rocks through a coffee filter.

It works with the coffee filter if you move the rocks with enough velocity and enough force.

[archy]

"I have heard that, in Boston, every application for a carry permit is denied and that they are only given on the appeal."

In Boston (and Brookline, as far as I know), you have to pass a marksmanship test in order to be considered for a license to carry. And then it's still up to the discretion of the chief of police.

Deprivations of civil rights under color of law are a felony, punishable by more than ten years imprisonment when committed by a police officer, and the death penalty in some circumstances.

And the federal government has prosecuted and jailed police officers for civil rights violations, in some cases holding the trials 40 years or more after the offense was committed. The police administrators and those who've enforced those policies could find their liberty- and pensions- suddenly absent one day, sooner or later, just one Supreme Court decision away.

And, if they've conspired with others, political leaders, to enforce such policies against the rights of citizens, they can be looking at life sentences, and even the death penalty can be applied for such criminal conspiracy under certain circumstances.

Accordingly, those are dangerous felons you're talking about there. Treat them accordingly.

[archy]

I know this sounds unbelievable, but it's true: a PhD/professor friend who was also a licensed hypnotherapist actually hypnotized an armed street mugger. The perp walked off shaking his head, as if he'd been whacked with a 2x4.

I had a Harvard pal of mine who told me of a couple of Boston's finest muggers who picked on the wrong customer, having overheard an elderly gent with an accent asking for directions; clearly an out-of-towner just off the plane from Logan Airport.

Surprise, surpise: the old fella was a visiting fencing master and master of the saber, in town to give a demonstration. So he gave an additional unscheduled demonstration to his surprised new students, and later related his adventure to his hosts after he arrived at his destination only slightly delayed.

His horrified local hosts considered calling the police and maybe an ambulance, but were dismissed by the Herr Schwertenmeister with the response that ...it would only result in unhelpful paperwork, and they were not so cut up that they could not walk....