Page 2 THE BATTALION TUESDAY, APRILS, 1975 I—» Squadron 9 thanked Cadets' conduct after student s death Editor: I would like to express the deepest gratitude on behalf of my family and myself to the men of Hellcat 9. These men provided deep emotional support and sym pathy after the death of my brother, Wallace Reinke. The high degree of espirit of the Corps was demon strated by the presence of the entire squadron at my brother’s funeral. Age requirement is first step In particular, I should like to thank the Hellcat 9 senior group consisting of Robert Fagner, Jerry Hiller, Hubert Hillman, Stephen Koplin, John Mazzurana, Eric Schaefer and David Tiller for their graciousness. I would like to thank Lieutenant Colonel Yarr and Major McClesky for their concern and sympathy. I could have wished for no finer friends for my brother. Robert T. Reinke, M. D. ‘64 Gun control Editor: First, I would like to congratulate Mike Perrin on his superb editorial (The economic reply, March 12), “Keep Your Pistol - Some dark night you might need it as a club.” Perrin looked at the topic of handgun legislation objectively — something it richly deserves but rarely gets. Perrin s point was that banning pistols or their ammunition will not eliminate them from the hands of criminals and/or eliminate crimes committed with deadly weapons. For some further proof of this look at a few of the presently outlawed weapons; the sawed off shotgun and sawed off rifle, the silencer, and the fully automatic weapons such as the machine gun. Has the banning of these weapons gotten them out of the criminals hand? Certainly not! One of the reasons this ban has not worked is because these weapons can be either made or sto len from legitimate sources like the military or police. It is again the military and police who would be the only legal owners of handguns according to the bill introduced into the National Legislature by U. S. Senator Hart and U. S. Represena- tive Bingham. Why can’t people leam by experience? It would be sheer folly to believe that the crimi nal will fork over his gun —only the law abiding citizen will come through. Please tell your U. S. Congress man that you are against the inde- scriminant banning of all handguns. John Sablatura By BILL SHEEN There are two bills pending in the state legislature which could signifi cantly affect our Board of Directors. One is a bill by Matt Garcia (of Bexar County) calling for a non voting student on all Boards of Di rectors throughout the state. The other bill is by “Mac” McAllister (of Lubbock) specifying that there should be at least one member less than 32-years-old on all boards. If you really want to get something done, I think pushing the lat ter is your best bet. I ve argued against students on board of directors in this column before. I still don’t think that TAMU or any other university in Texas is mature enough for a stu dent on the Board. But I do think McAlister’s idea is a good one. Representative McAlister origi nally introduced that bill two years ago. It made it out of committee but was defeated on the floor. The amount of support it might rally today is a question that even McAlister is unprepared to answer, but it probably is more likely to do well than Garcia’s bill. No one can say for sure, but since Garcia’s bill is a good deal more radical, I believe that resistance to it is likely to be stronger. So the chance that our representatives will be able to objectively consider the bill are immediately minimized. However, McAlister’s bill may be just enough of a step in the right direction, without being too radi cal, to ease its passage. But there are objections to it also. Some say it is too conservative, and it will only introduce young conservative political appoint ments. Maybe so. But I’ll take a young conservative political ap pointee over an old conservative political appointment any day. The idea behind the bill is to inject youth into the boards. It doesn’t deal with politics at all. And, of course, there are those who will give you the old line that youth precludes experience. And experience is necessary to make responsible decisions. That argu ment assumes that for every ar gument, there is a mythical “right” answer which age will unerringly provide. I don’t believe that age is always right any more than I believe that youth is always wrong. Another criticism is that 32 is a “magic age without any particular value. That reasoning is used to slight the bill’s value. However, it doesn’t pretend to any magic quali ties. If you believe, as McAlister does, that more young representa tion is needed, you’ve got to pick a bottom line. There is nothing more important to passing any bill than political expendiency. And at this point in time 32 seems to be the politically expedient age. If you say that 32 is a “magic age,” all you’re really saying is that you’re against the bill and not that you’re against the chosen age. But the idea behind the bill isn’t so complicated; these criticisms are not important. All it really means is that boards of directors throughout the state need some youth. Almost any board you could name is top-heavy with older con servatism. It isn’t really a compro mise between having students and old political appointees on boards of directors. It says that as things now stand we already have an abun dance of the best of conservatism. What we need now is some of the best of the freshness that youth will give us. Younger board members serve as a conduit between youth and age. The young and the old will meet and influence one another. Maybe even learn a little from each other. We might even get lucky and change a few conservative minds from time to time. The chairman of the subcommit tee considering the bills appreciates input. His address is: The Honorable Bill Caraway Capitol Building Austin, Texas 78767 Express your support. Only you can give it that. It may not be as much as you want, but it’s the best you’re going to get for a while. Slouch Jim Earle