Maine’s politically incorrect famous author

One of the problems with political correctness is you can never tie down all of those pesky “politically incorrect” people. Two years ago, the Wisconsin Legislature invited Green Bay Packer great Reggie White, a preacher man during the off-season, to address state lawmakers about the importance of family values. Until then, everyone in the state idolized White as a great football player and role model for young people.

State lawmakers, therefore, were aghast when White began his sermon with a declaration that although God loves gays, they’ll never make it to heaven; Jews, as a race, are superior at making money; and Hispanics are best known for raising big families in one-bedroom apartments. From the governor on down, Wisconsin politicians talked about the need of rehabilitating their football icon. Poor old Reggie had to drag his tired bones back to Lambeau Field for one more season to prove that he wasn’t the black version of David Duke.

Al Gore unveiled his national gun control plank Monday. The plan would require that all persons seeking to buy a handgun obtain a photo ID card. Bill Bradley, Gore’s Democratic rival, is demanding that all handgun owners, not just new buyers, be photographed and registered by the government. Bradley would also compel gun owners to take a safety course.

“Parents have a right to know if a child has brought a gun to school …,” Gore sore Monday, keying his message to the Colorado high school massacre.

Gore and Bradley won’t get the vote of Maine author Carolyn Chute, who is this state’s most politically incorrect famous person. Chute writes about the poor and disadvantaged. She rails against corporations, rich people and the “elite” class that has reaped most of the spoils of Bill Clinton’s bull market economy.

“… Thousands of people who want to keep their guns without government interference, who have been all along of a liberal nature … will flee the Democrat-type thinking camp and solidify around a conservative camp,” Chute wrote in an article about gun control published by the Portland newspapers last month. Taking guns away from poor rural people, Chute wrote, is just another type of class warfare. The elite class, according to Chute, has all the protections of government, and all of the other benefits money can buy. For a poor single mother living in a rural Maine town, a gun may be all that stands between her and a drunken ex-husband intent on beating her to death.

“I beg you to hear me. We feel safer. Taking guns, or even registering guns and having the government `hold your hand’ is a symbolic castration,” Chute wrote. “When I hear `gun registration and gun control,’ the only thing I hear is CONTROL … before you can get [a gun] registered, you will have to prove you have a vault. You will have to pay your gun insurance. …,” wrote the author, concluding:

“… If anybody comes to bother me about my guns, I SHALL bite’em in the ankle and rip off at least one ear and curse their tribe for 20 and one centuries.”

It would be easy to dismiss Carolyn Chute as just a politically incorrect gadfly like Reggie White. In truth, however, far more people agree with their views than polls suggest. That’s because only the most outspoken among us has the courage to admit to holding politically incorrect opinions. The underlying premise of political correctness is convincing the masses that everybody thinks like everybody else.

Gun control is a far more complex issue than Gore and Bradley would have you think. For example, there is statistical evidence indicating that the rate of murders, rapes and violent crime is consistently lower in states where people can carry handguns than in states where that is illegal. There’s also the problem of not enforcing existing gun control laws. A new study found that of the 6,000 students caught trying to sneak a gun into schools, the Clinton-Gore Justice Department prosecuted only 17. And of the more than 400,000 felons who lied on their application while trying to buy guns, fewer than 1,000 were taken to court.

If the liberal “elite” class, to cite Carolyn Chute, is so hot on taking guns away from working class Americans, why doesn’t it also demand that the government crack down on crooks and kids who break existing gun control laws?

John S. Day is a Bangor Daily News columnist based in Washington, D.C. His e-mail address is zanadume@aol.com.