Heart of Darkness (originally aired January 18, 2005)
A reporter looking into gun dealers is found dead, an apparent suicide. A woman is charged with murder, but she claims that she was trying to help him commit suicide. The dead man's brother, who helped with the suicide, gets charged as well.
- Assisted Suicide. Nearly all states prohibit assisted suicide. In New York, for example, intentionally causing or aiding someone to commit suicide is considered manslaughter in the second degree under Penal Law 125.15, and is punishable by up to 15 years in jail.
In recent years, many people have tried to change laws prohibiting physician-assisted suicide in the political arena and in the courts. Most of these efforts have ultimately failed, with Oregon the first and still only state to have permitted physician-assisted suicide in certain circumstances.
The United States Supreme Court on January 17, 2005 upheld Oregon's assisted suicide program, which allows doctors to prescribe lethal doses of medication for terminally ill patients and which was created after voters approved initiatives in 1994 and 1997. More than 200 people have committed suicide via the program from 1998 to 2004 (see report by Oregon's Department of Human Services (on-line here). The federal government sought to block the Oregon law as violating the federal Controlled Substances Act, but this argument was rejected by some lower courts. The Supreme Court ruled in a 6-3 majority that the CSA was not meant to cover medical practices that a state had deemed legitimate (opinion on-line here).
Doctors in Washington State and New York challenged their respective states' laws prohibiting assisted suicide in the 1990s, arguing that allowing terminally-ill patients to refuse medical treatment but not allowing them to receive fatal doses of medical treatment was unconstitutional. The United States Supreme Court rejected these challenges in 1997, holding that there was no constitutional right to commit suicide or to have assistance in doing so. Laws prohibiting assisted-suicide thus can be undone only through the political process, not through the courts.
- Gun Dealing. Some have criticized the so-called "iron pipeline" by which guns are bought in states with weaker gun laws or less enforcement and are exported to states with stricter gun laws for use in crimes there.
New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg said in his second inaugural address on January 1, 2006 that ending the threat of illegal guns was "our most urgent challenge." "[T]o those who distort our laws to aid and abet hardened criminals, know this: We will not rest until we secure all of the tools we need to protect New Yorkers from the scourge of illegal guns," he said.
About a third of the guns used in crimes, recovered by law enforcement, and traced back to their source were purchased in one state and used in a crime in another, according to a report by the Americans for Gun Safety organization (on-line here), based on analysis of 2001 data from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (on-line here). Georgia in particular was criticized by the Americans for Gun Safety organization as one of the leading gun-exporting states, and many of its exported guns reportedly were used in New York.
Differences between Georgia and New York gun laws do make it easier to buy a gun in Georgia than in New York. For example, New York requires every person who receives a handgun to first get a license, while Georgia does not.
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By Stephen Lee
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