Camera Praised as Weapon to Aid in War on Crime

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 113, 29 May 1937, Page 18

Camera Praised as Weapon to Aid in War on Crime

An editorial writer in the Pacific Rural Press makes an ingenious pro> posal to. discourage law-breakers. Firm in his conviction that films are mighter than bullets, he recommends that the citizen who wishes to defend himself against wrongs and misdemcanors make a practice of carrying a pockot camera. • There is no law against this kind of a concealed weapon, and it is sometimes more effective, and always more humane, than a revolver. If anyono molests you or your property, and you' produce a little camera and proceed to take a snapshot of him, he is likely to do what is known in motion picture and radio circle3 as a fade-out. The writer of this editorial says that he once saw public-spirited women put yote repeaters to rout. by this method in an election in Missouri, and he cites an instance of the candid camera being used to put Beattie racketeers to flight. "Our belief is," maintains the P. R. P., "that if ,the average citjzen would earry a small camera in his poeket, one J ready to shoot by merely pointing and ! pressing, that xioting would soon fade, that illegal pieketing would stop, and th$t racketeers with criminal Tecords and those aliens who are illegally in this country would go into seclusion. ". ' Another time when the little poeket camera comes in handy • is when a drunken or careless driver bumps into your car on the highway. A snap-shot will establish a permanent record of his license number, and of the identity of the driver, and it may even provido conclusive evidepcc as to ihe party who is to blame in the affair. It will eertainly protect jvu from being imposed upon by professional racketeers who try to profit from mishaps on tho road. And apart from all this, if you have a camera in your poeket you will never have to say wistfully, "I wish I had a picture of that." You '11 have one. So here's to(the poeket policeman, the candid camera.