Yesterday I sent an email to the author of an anti-freedom editorial. I received a response from her today and I responded:
From: Zackywacks@aol.com
Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2005 4:40 AM
To: Joe Huffman
Subject: Re: Red Lake, Minnesota Shooting [On Gun Control]Hi Joe. Thanks for your thoughts on this subject. I guess that any percentage of decline would not make a difference for those bent on carrying guns that get in the hands of babes and then kill other children…so let’s begin to issue guns to children in grade school so they can protect themselves from each other. NOT!
Thanks again and have a nice day.MichelleFrom: Joe Huffman
Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2005 8:39 AM
To: ‘Zackywacks@aol.com’
Subject: RE: Red Lake, Minnesota Shooting [On Gun Control]The point wasn’t that it wasn’t possible that some decline in gun related deaths occurred due to the assault weapon ban. The point was that the numbers used could not possibly be accurate and that the number of gun related deaths are really irrelevant. This is because thousands of those deaths are people shot by the police and private citizens in the defense of innocent life. Furthermore if firearms become less available, the criminals substitute other weapons, and their victims are less able to defend themselves due to the lack of a firearm the total violent crime death rate may actually increase. To evaluate the benefits of gun control there is only one question we need to answer:Can you demonstrate just one time, one place, throughout all of human history, where restricting the access of handheld weapons to the average person made them safer?For more background:And I fail to see how sarcasm is productive in this discussion.You have a nice day too.Joe Huffman
Senior Research Scientist
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
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http://blog.joehuffman.org
http://www.boomershoot.org