The Gateway Objectivist 

The monthly newsletter of the Gateway Objectivists, St. Louis, Missouri 

February 2001 

Vol. 9, No. 2

  Newsletter Editor:  Jon Litton


February Meeting:
“Basic Firearms: Nomenclature, Ballistics, Laws, and the Assault Rifle Controversy”

Our next meeting on Saturday, February 17, will be an evening of education about guns and gun laws. Rich Aldridge will present “Basic Firearms: Nomenclature, Ballistics, Laws, and the Assault Rifle Controversy.” He will discuss the different types of firearms and ammunition, for the benefit of those who haven’t had exposure to them. He will also talk about the field of ballistics with various types of ammunition. Rich will then point out fallacies in the controversy over banning assault weapons.

You’ll want to make sure to join us for the informative meeting on Saturday, February 17, at 8 p.m., at the home of Joy & Jeff Kiviat. Call (314) 469-2723 for directions. The presentation will be followed by plenty of snacks and discussion.

Judge, Jury and Entertainment

 At our last meeting, we played “Judge for Yourself – The Game of Real Life Courtroom Dramas.” The game involved real life court cases where we acted as jurors, deciding whether the actual jury found for or against the plaintiffs. Congratulations go to Rich Aldridge who won by getting the verdict correct on every case.

While we enjoyed playing the game, many were disappointed that the cases were not more clearly or extensively explained, making it hard to decide on the verdict. We did discuss each case and the merits of for or against verdicts, and tried to look at them from an objective law viewpoint.

With some effort on the part of GO’s members, we hope to have another game night soon – an Objectivist version of Trivial Pursuit. Please contact us at gwobjctvst@aol.com if you know of Objectivist trivia questions that are already written.

Stossel v. U.S. Government

John Stossel gave us another poignant prime time special on ABC on January 27. “John Stossel Goes to Washington” looked at the waste and destruction of some government programs and what the role of the government should be.

Tibor Machan was featured as an expert on what is wrong with the tax-and-spend government and what the founding fathers believed were the only proper functions of government. Rep. Ron Paul talked about why he votes against any bill that violates those proper functions.

Stossel used examples such as public housing, air traffic control and the welfare of American Indians to show what has gone wrong when the government is in control, and how much better and less expensive services can be when done by the private sector. Stossel scheduled an interview with then-Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt to find out about millions of dollars missing that were intended for American Indian programs. After 30 seconds, Babbitt stood up, muttered, “I’m gonna fire whoever scheduled this interview,” and walked out.

We welcome submissions of reviews, articles, columns and commentary. Direct all correspondence to gwobjctvst@aol.com.