— In [email protected], “Nancy” <sw357mag@m…> wrote:
> Blood pressure a little low today?
> Click on this:
> “Second Amendment poorly written, needs revisions”
> http://www.statenews.com/editions/080300/op_col1.html
> written by Chris Hansen hansenc6@p…

Well I went to the site and read the piece. It didn’t really get my
pressure up, but my dander is at full fluff<g> Here’s my reply to
Hansen:
Dear Chris Hansen,

I’m replying to your recent editorial in the State News, which was
brought to my attention by a fellow police officer. I’d like to
refute some of your statements, if I could — and I know that I can –
and I promise to try and be polite. I’m sending this to you because,
since I don’t reside in the area, the paper is less than likely to
print my letter and it was you I wanted to address in any event.

You began:

>I’ll begin student teaching in an inner-city school in one
month.
Some obdurate pro->gun people are suggesting that I purchase a
handgun for protection.

Obdurate? You mean they were steadfast in their belief that you were
going into harm’s way and needed some protection? Congratulations for
teaching in an inner-city school, by the way. We need teachers there.

>It is unfortunate that they refuse to realize children will think
violence is an >acceptable way of dealing with problems if they see
their teachers carrying guns. >The presentation of suggestive tokens
of violence, such as handguns through real
>life, television or movies, leads to actual violence and ultimately,
death.

Violence is often the only solution to some problems. The only
sensible and life-affirming response to a violent attack on you or
someone you might wish to protect is going to involve violence.
That’s why the police carry them. They also have other means to solve
problems, beginning with an ability to reason and talk to people.
When that fails, they have the ability to escalate to the appropriate
level of force to deal with the situation.

Violence predates movies, television, rap music and even books. Life
is, frequently and perhaps unfortunately violent. We are evolved from
predatory animals, territorial animals. If you’ve watched much nature
television you know that nature is not pastoral and serene much of
the time. Even in the insect world there is violence.
I long for the day when pro-gun people realize “an eye for an
eye”
way of life will make everyone blind.

>I’m surprised that pro-gun advocates don’t recognize handguns as
instruments of death.

Handguns are tools. They are instruments of death only in the hands
of people who wish to kill with them. A surprising number of people
who own guns have no desire to kill anything. They might desire to
damage some paper or a tin can or two, but nothing more.

>Handguns are responsible for thousands of homicides every year.

Handguns are not “responsible” for anything. They are inanimate
objects, waiting to be used. They have no feelings, so they don’t
even wait anxiously.

>The U.S. government is generally quick to protect decent drivers
from defective >vehicles by taking vehicles off the buying market or
at least fixing their defects. It is >time for the U.S. government to
protect the lives of all citizens by taking guns out of >the hands of
people that contain an undisclosed amount of paranoia that makes
>them think they need to carry a handgun to feel safe.

If a handgun is defective, it should be returned to the dealer with a
strongly worded letter of complaint. If it is used correctly and is
in working order, it will not harm anything that the user doesn’t
intend to harm. It is time that people stopped waiting for the
government to act for them. If you think that government will make
you safe, you paid scant attention in history classes.

Yes, some people who buy guns are paranoid. A realistic appreciation
of danger is not, by definition — look in the DSM-IV — paranoia.
There are far more people with a realistic fear than there are
paranoids. People who refuse to see reality when faced with it are
said to be in denial. If the denial is too deep, it may be considered
part of a psychotic disorder. Again, read the DSM-IV.

>I question the sanity of anyone who thinks they need a handgun to
feel safe. In fact, >many pro-gun people may feel uneasy or even
enraged because of what they have >read thus far. Before reading on,
please recognize that there is no “handgun” in the >NRA
acronym. In
the following paragraphs I will not try to stimulate emotions >simply
to make people angry. I will present a common-sense argument
regarding >the need to restrict the distribution of handguns.

There is nothing commonsensical about your approach, although it
doesn’t make me angry. I am saddened by your lack of perception, but
nothing more. You may question my sanity and that of the millions of
other people who own guns for protection, but I have a board-
certified psychiatrist who can testify to my sanity and my
suitability to go armed on the public streets. So do the vast
majority of cops, the majority of whom disagree with you, by the way.

>First of all, people that feel they need handguns for safety are not
mentally stable >and are putting others in danger.

And you know this how? Can you cite some reputable source?

>The chances of being a victim of homicide in the United States are
still more than a ratio of 100,000-to-1. In the rare occurrence that
a stranger robs a person at >gunpoint, the victim is more likely to
die from a gunshot if they antagonize their >attacker, by showing the
attacker their own handgun.

According to Gary Kleck in his book “Targeting Guns” there are
millions of defensive uses of handguns each year. Most do not involve
an exchange of gunfire. Local newspapers report these cases, but they
get little attention, since the general media has opinions similar to
yours.

>The same feelings of paranoia that caused the victim to buy a
handgun in the first >place are now occurring in the attacker. The
attacker then shoots the victim instead >of merely robbing him or
her. So much for added “protection.”

Paranoia aside — and I think I dispensed with that notion in the
paragraphs above — it is possible that in an exchange of gunfire the
innocent party might be injured. It is a fact that there are more
killings for no apparent reason after the victim has given up his
possessions than ever before. Part of this has to do with the desire
to eliminate witnesses in the face of “three strikes” laws and some
of it may be the fact that the current criminal class does not care
one wit about your life.

>Worst of all is the fact that this paranoia breeds more criminals. A
person that >purchases a handgun for protection may become so
paranoid that they’ll become a >criminal.

Can you cite any sources for this factoid?

>Almost two-thirds of felony weapons violators had no prior criminal
history before >they purchased a gun. The servile battle cry of
“guns
don’t kill people, people kill >people” is completely false. Most
people wouldn’t know the first thing about killing >others if they
had to kill without a gun.

In five years as a police officer assigned to a County hospital and
two years as a Psychiatric Liaison Officer in San Francisco I saw
more homicides with edged weapons than with guns. I also saw people
beaten to death. In the recent case of the hockey dad who killed
another dad at the rink, no weapons other than hands were used. Where
did this dad learn to kill? I think he reached back into his old
mammal self and found the means to express his rage. Or, as some
people have said, “With what gun did Cain slay Abel?”

>The Second Amendment says, “A well regulated militia, being
necessary to the >security of a free state, the right of the people
to keep and bear arms, shall not be >infringed.” This poorly
written
amendment regarding “the right to bear arms” was >written
more than
200 years ago when the United States did not have a formal army >and
needed militias to fight the British. We no longer have to fear the
redcoats, >people. The United States has a very modern defense
system. It is no longer >necessary for normal citizens to bear arms
in order to create spontaneous military >defense.

You haven’t read the material written at the time of the forming of
the Bill of Rights and are woefully ignorant for an educator of the
early history of this nation and the reasons for which it was formed
and the ideas of the founders. Part of the reason for giving the
people — and that is what even liberal Constitutional Law scholars
like Laurence Tribe believe is meant; an individual right, not a
collective one — the right to keep and bear arms was to protect us
from a tyrannical government, something we are beginning to see.

>Some people feel they need handguns to protect themselves from a
government >takeover. A .44-caliber Magnum and a shack full of other
guns is no match for a >ballistic missile. Face it, if the government
wants to take you over or kill you, it will.

True, if someone wanted to raze this country with atomic missiles
we’d be hard pressed to stop them. If they tried more conventional
means, however, we could do just what the Colonists did when the
greatest army in the world tried to enslave them. Or what the Spanish
guerrillas did to Napoleon’s army under Marshal Ney; Or General
Giap’s Viet Cong did to the French, the Americans and the South
Vietnamese; Or yet what the mujhadeen did to the Red Army in
Afghanistan; Or the Chechins are doing, now. Or the Chiapas Indians
are doing in Mexico. We could make them bleed and think twice about
continuing to prosecute a war on our shores. What’s past is prologue,
after all.

>Letting anyone bear and sell arms only creates more gun-wielding
maniacs. The >Second Amendment needs to be changed so that it only
gives people the right to >bear hunting rifles. These rifles should
only be available through registered gun >dealers.

The Second Amendment has nothing whatsoever to do with hunting. It
has to do with the right to self defense against enemies foreign and
domestic. That includes invaders, tyrants and stick-up men and
rapists. People who bear arms responsibly — which the vast majority
of the 70 million or more gun owners do — are hardly maniacs. Check
your definition.

>It is very difficult to conceal a hunting rifle.

Yes, this may be the first thing I can agree with you on. Hiding a
deer rifle is pretty hard to do unless you’re very tall.

>Most hunting rifles are also difficult to equip with semi-automatic
features – I know >this because I spent 18 years in a small town that
takes pride in hunting.

Many people hunt with semi-automatic weapons, both rifles and
shotguns. If you mean convert to full-automatic, that’s hardly an
issue. Fully automatic guns are, in my opinion, not suited to
hunting. Of course, there are hundreds of elephant poachers in Black
Africa who would disagree. They find full-auto AK-47s just the thing.
Hardly sporting, though. And not much pride involved, there, either
.
>I used to hunt but am no longer an advocate of the sport. However,
if people want to >spend their free time killing sentient beings
besides humans, it is between them >and their karma.

I don’t sport hunt. I hunt sometimes for the variety in meat and
because it is a tradition in my heritage — Scots-Irish-Cree — to do
so.

>We live in a free country where people can do whatever they want as
long as it >doesn’t threaten the lives of others. Letting people
own
instruments of death such >as handguns is a threat to the freedom of
all Americans.

People own a variety of “instruments of death” the largest and most
lethal of which is the automobile. So what? Most people don’t use any
of them irresponsibly. In the jargon of the medical profession
they “do no harm.”

>The Brady Bill’s background check and our outstanding economy
have
combined to >bring homicide by firearms down 32 percent since 1993.

Where did you get that figure? According to a study which appeared
recently in the JAMA, Brady has been instrumental in lowering deaths
in only one category: Suicide by males over 55. And the decrease is
infinitesimal: Less than one percent.

>This is a good start. Child safety trigger locks and more extensive
background >checks are essential and completely rational.

Child safety locks cause problems. They can make it impossible to
quickly deploy a gun kept for self-protection. Ask most cops how they
feel about trigger locks on their guns at home. Teaching children to
deal with weapons in a responsible manner is a better solution. It is
how I was taught and how my kids were taught.

>The majority of Americans are not walking around with guns because
we don’t have >to and don’t want to.

And that majority should not be compelled to carry guns. Only a
person who is willing to learn to use one, be willing to use one and
to face the consequences of using one should carry a gun.

>In order to create a safer America, we must realize that “guns
don’t
die, people do.”

Nice catch phrase in response to the other one, but it is
meaningless. Guns, being, as I said, inanimate, can’t die. They can
rust, of course, but that isn’t the same.

>That’s exactly what I plan to teach my students.

Your students, Mr. Hansen, are not going to taught well, in that
case, and that’s a pity. Perhaps you should go back to the books and
study the issue a little more. Better informed is always better,
isn’t it?

James C. Fraser-Paige
Californian Law Enforcement Officer, Ret.