Letter to Senator
Bill Nelson (D-FL)
Last week I heard a
sound byte in which you expressed apprehension over having to go after a huge
python while being armed with only a machete. You then went on to say that
you'd much prefer to be equipped with a shotgun. I also viewed a video clip
depicting you embarking on a hunt for pythons in the Florida Everglades. Thus
having learned that you are a hunter, I was moderately encouraged to the point
of hoping that you might approach the issue of gun control with more
rationality and less hysteria than many of your colleagues in the Senate are
presently doing.
I have never owned
a gun of any sort (except for a water-pistol which I occasionally used to
extinguish cigarettes in the mouths of students who were openly violating a
rule against smoking in the hallways at a foreign university where I taught for
a while). However, well before the tragic shootings in Newtown, CT, on Dec 14,
2012, I had already been seriously considering purchasing one gun (only one)
and taking instruction in its proper use for self-defense. I'm a 66-year-old
never-married old-maid, only 5 feet tall and weighing only 100 pounds. I live
alone with my Boston terrier (a dependable barker but an incapable protector)
out in the boonies of [Redacted] County, [xx] miles from the county seat and
about [x] miles from the nearest sheriff's department sub-station. If a hostile
intruder should threaten me, even a prompt response to a 911 call would not be
soon enough to prevent violence being done to me. In fact, my home was
burglarized in [spring] 2003 while I was overseas for an extended period. My
neighbor, knowing that I was away, called the sheriff's office when she noticed
that my front door was open. When I subsequently obtained a copy of the
official report on the incident, I was told that evidence of marijuana smoking
had been found on the premises.
My father COULD
have given me all the firearms instruction I would have ever needed, but I was
not interested in learning such skills during my youth. I gave up after the
first (and only) time that I pinched my finger while holding a gun under the
careful supervision of my father, who was the most careful gun owner that I've
ever known. He was meticulously careful with his large collection of assorted
firearms, and he had very strict rules concerning handling them. If any visitor
violated any of his rules, that person was firmly ordered to leave the
premises. Furthermore, there was NEVER any gun-related accident in my parents'
home where I lived for the first 22 years of my life, nor was there ever any
such incident, even until the time my father died when I was 38 years old. I
treasure his belt-buckle which says, "They'll take my guns from me when
they pry them from my dead fingers."
Of course Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) would
patronizingly point to my father as a prime example for his [Rangel's] recent
remark on MSNBC in endorsement of New York's new hastily legislated
restrictions on private ownership of guns: "New York is a little different and more progressive
in a lot of areas than some other states," he said. "Some
of the southern areas have cultures that we have to overcome." Whose culture would he impose on us? Would it be one
like that of New York City, which reportedly had 400+ murders, 1400+ rapes, 20000+ robberies,
19300+ felonious assaults, 19000+ burglaries and 42300+ grand larcenies last
year alone?
Rep. Rangel and
other like-minded members of both houses of Congress would do well to heed
former President Bill Clinton's remarks to the Obama National Finance Committee
on Jan 19 with regard to gun issues: “Do not patronize the passionate
supporters of your opponents by looking down your nose at them.” [http://www.politico.com/story/2013/01/bill-clinton-to-democrats-dont-trivialize-gun-culture-86443.html]
Sen. Nelson, the USA
does NOT need any more gun-control laws! Criminals know where to go on the
black market to obtain all the weapons they desire. Requiring nationwide
registration of all firearms will eventually lead to nationwide confiscation
from law-abiding citizens. "Confiscation could never happen in the
USA"??? German citizens who elected Adolph Hitler in 1933 didn't think
confiscation would ever occur there, either.
Dr. David Healy, an
internationally renowned psychiatrist, psychopharmacologist, professor of psychiatry
in Wales, founder & CEO of Data Based Medicine Limited [https://www.rxisk.org],
and former Secretary of the British Association for Psychopharmacology, is the
author of more than 150 peer-reviewed articles, 200 miscellaneous articles, and
20 books. His research focuses on clinical trials in psychopharmacology,
psychopharmacological history, and the impact of both trials and psychotropic
drugs on Western culture. He has served as an expert witness in homicide and suicide
trials involving psychotropic drugs, and has endeavored to bring problems with
such drugs to the attention of both American and British regulatory agencies [http://davidhealy.org/david-healy-bio/
; http://davidhealy.org/articles/#journalpublications
; http://davidhealy.org/books/]
In a recent
interview with WorldNetDaily, Dr. Healy unequivocally stated that psychotropic
drugs, widely used as antidepressants, “prescribed for school children cause violent behavior...." Moreover, such drugs can make children “aggressive and hostile” and possibly suicidal. He also warned concerning a very
high correlation between mass shootings and the use of SSRI [selective
serotonin reuptake inhibitor] drugs: “When roughly nine out of every 10 cases in these school shootings and mass
shootings involve these drugs being prescribed, then at least a significant proportion
of these cases were either caused by the drugs or the drugs made a significant
contribution to the problem.” [http://www.wnd.com/2013/01/top-psychiatrist-meds-behind-school-massacres/]
Also, please
consider the actual outcome of Australia's enactment of very strict gun laws in
response to a mass shooting in 1996. Although former Prime Minister John Howard wrote in an Op-Ed published in the New York Times on Jan 17, "Few Australians would deny that their country is safer today
as a consequence of gun control” [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/17/opinion/australia-banned-assault-weapons-america-can-too.html?_r=1&], it should, nevertheless, be noted that the homicide rate in
Australia had already been falling prior to 1996 and that mass shootings in
fact constitute only a small percentage of all homicides.
A
study published by the Brookings Institution in 2003, "Australia: A Massive
Buy back of Low-Risk Guns,” observed that
. . .the
interventions had modest effects on the extent of suicide and violent crime.
Suicide rates did not fall, though there was a shift toward less use of guns,
continuing a very long-term decline. Homicides continued a modest decline;
taking into account die [sic] one-time effect of the Port Arthur massacre
itself, the share of murders committed with firearms declined sharply. Other
violent crime, such as armed robbery, continued to increase, but again with
fewer incidents that involved firearms. This relatively small effect is hardly
surprising given that the type of firearms prohibited had not previously been
used frequently in crime or suicide, as well as the low power of the potential
tests, with less than five years of postban data. However, the principal goal
of the intervention was ending the mass murders; in the five years since the
buyback, there has been a modest reduction in the severity of these murders,
and none have involved firearms, though the frequency of these events is so low
that not much can be inferred from this occurrence. [http://www.popcenter.org/problems/gun_violence/PDFs/Reuter_Mouzos_2003.pdf]
Moreover,
researchers at the University of Melborne
in 2008, after re-analyzing the same data used in earlier studies, concluded
that "the NFA [National Firearms Agreement] did not have any large
effects on reducing firearm homicide or suicide rates.” [http://www.melbourneinstitute.com/miaesr/publications/working-paper-series/abstract-178.html]
Before
any member of Congress votes to enact even one additional restriction on the
Second Amendment rights of Americans, each should carefully study the Genocide
Chart compiled by Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership,
available for download at http://jpfo.org/pdf02/genocide-chart.pdf. It is a
historical fact that, in the 20th Century alone, evil governments in nations
such as Ottoman Turkey, the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, China, Guatemala,
Uganda, Cambodia, and Rwanda eliminated 170,000,000 lives by execution after
disarming their respective civilian populations.
Sen.
Nelson, I agree with Corporal Joshua Boston, USMC (2004-2012), who recently
wrote in an open letter to Sen. Diane Feinstein: "I will not register my weapons
should this bill
[the one introduced in the Senate on Jan 24] be passed, as I do not believe it is
the government’s right to know what I own. Nor do I think it prudent to tell
you what I own so that it may be taken from me by a group of people who enjoy
armed protection yet decry me having the same a crime....” [http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=UR3IshaCZyY]
Sen.
Nelson, please remember your oath of office: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm)
that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against
all enemies, foreign and domestic...." The US Constitution is currently under
attack from domestic enemies of the Second Amendment, some of whom even claim
to believe in it. I will be closely following this issue.
Cheryl
J. Rutledge, Ph.D.
Musician,
Educator, Editor
www.AcademicEnglishEditing-DrRutledge.com
No comments:
Post a Comment