Ken Rineer told me that my letter concerning the Redundancy of Shannon's Law was printed all the way down in the Tucson Citizen. Eat your heart out, Phil Murphy. This morning a co-worker told me she saw a perhaps edited version in a recent Mesa Tribune.
Here is the letter as forwarded to me by Ken...
This is what appeared in todays letters:
Shannon's Law feel-good measure
The Citizen's coverage of the Shannon's Law debate has been miserable and average. Nowhere in the recent articles is there mention of three existing felony statutes in Arizona Revised Code Title 13 that could and should be used to prosecute such crimes. The bill's proponents tell us that prosecutors are unable to use the clear language of those laws. But on closer inspection we find that they have never tried to use them because police never catch the violators. Shannon's Law is an unfortunate example of feel-good legislation. But it did not need to be this way. It was suggested to the Legislature that the redundant penalty found in Shannon's Law be replaced by a dollar-for-dollar tax credit for firearms safety training as well as public service announcements featuring gun safety messages. After all, the media blitz in the weeks before New Year's was followed by a 40 percent reduction in reports of gunfire. That shows the power of education. But the proposal was abandoned by the Legislature. Why? At the urging of the National Rifle Association, which does not like to see competition for its own training programs. And more to the point, the NRA knows a political victory when it sees one, even though the benefits will be equivalent to the number of prosecutions under the old and new law: zero.
RICK DeSTEPHENS,
Glendale
Here are the reasons why The Citizen printed my letter
1) It had something to say and did so reasonably concisely
2) It lauded the media's role in education
3) It slammed the NRA for back-door dealing
4) Wry juxtaposition
5) It was not signed by Phil Murphy or Scott Wood
later,
Rick