The Firing Line Forums - View Single Post - HCI fund raiser letter....and my response (long)

Marko Kloos · January 28, 2000, 10:39 AM

I found a piece of mail from HCI in my mailbox yesterday. I doubt that they mail this crap out to a lot of people, so I'll share it with you, as well as my response letter. Let me know what you think.
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Dear staffer at Handgun Control,

I recently received a referendum from you in the mail. It is titled "2000 Referendum on Guns and Violence", and it also asks for a contribution to your cause.

I know that this mail will only be read by a staff member who is checking the incoming mail for contribution checks, and that this mail will probably never be read in its entirety by you. I therefore retain a copy of it for distribution to local newspapers and other publications.

The "2000 Referendum on Guns and Violence" is a questionnaire containing twelve questions. You only provide checkboxes to choose between two possible answers to each of those questions. All of the questions are highly suggestive in nature, and the possible answers are formulated in such a way that makes it unlikely that *anybody* will ever contradict the general sentiment of the questionnaire.

This angers me on two different levels. First of all, you assume that I am naive and uncritical enough to be content with your preformulated opinions, and that I do not hold my own. (One could argue that you may think my opinion does not matter if it is not what you want it to be). Secondly, your questionnaire states that my answers will be compiled with others and presented to members of Congress and state legislators. This leads me to believe that you will use the answers of a highly opinionated minority (the members of your mailing list that care enough to finish this questionnaire and send it back with a check), and pass it off as "the opinion of the American people", as in "80% of Americans polled agree with our point of view". While not a flat out lie--most of the people polled probably are Americans--it is a distortion of facts at best, since you fail to mention that the polled group is not exactly representative of the American populace at large.

Therefore, I am returning the referendum on my own terms. I have listed your questions below, followed by my answers. I apologize if I hold an opinion that disqualifies me from the mindless and uncritical checking of boxes.

For the record: I am not a member of any "pro-gun" organization, and all of the opinions listed below are my own. They are dictated to me by common sense.

Here is your "Referendum on Guns and Violence":

1.) "Are you concerned that guns may be destroying the sense of security among American school children and their families because today's children have too easy access to guns?"

Your choices for my answer:

a.) Concerned
b.) Unconcerned

My answer:

c.) No, because I don't agree with the premise of the question, and I also dispute its validity. Children today do not have easy access to guns when compared with children in the 1950s and 1960s. In those decades, it was quite common for children to bring their own rifles to school for ROTC training or field activities, and anybody could purchase guns via mail until the 1960s. There were no mass school shootings back then even though fireamrs were more easily obtained prior to 1968. These days, we have "zero tolerance" policies in schools that require parents to pack *plastic knives* into children's lunch boxes because butter knives are considered weapons, and somehow this lack of readily accessible weapons has not made our kids more peaceful and less violent. On a sidenote, school shootings are so sensational precisely because they are *rare*, not common. Your organization uses incidents like Columbine (where the shooters broke twenty-odd state and federal gun laws) to push knee-jerk legislation which won't do a bit to reduce violent crime. In a way, Handgun Control would lose its pull in Washington without those sensationalized and exploited school shootings. Therefore, I think we can argue that Handgun Control is one of the contributing factors to the "destruction of sense of security" among American children and their families, precisely because you exploit these incidents to fan emotions.

2.) "Are you aware that in most states an adult can leave a loaded handgun on the dining room table, within easy access of a child, and there are no legal consequences for doing so, and no consequences for the adult if the child uses the gun in a harmful way?"

Your choices for my answer:

a.) Aware
b.) Unaware

My answer:

c.) I am aware of the fact that an adult can leave a chainsaw in the garage, fully gassed up, within easy reach of a child, without having to fear legal consequences either. I can hand the keys to the family car to a child and fear no legal repercussions for doing so. On the same note, I *could* leave a handgun within easy access of a child, and not have to worry about it being illegal.
That said, why do you attest common sense to car and tool owners, but not to gun owners? All of the gun owners I know would never be irresponsible enough to leave a loaded weapon within the reach of an unsupervised child.
Contrary to your claim, I am guilty of negligence if my kid saws his leg off with my chainsaw, and DSS would probably have a word with me. The same holds true for a gun accident. If you make it a felony for people to *potentially* facilitate a child's accident, you'd collapse the legal system with lawsuits against almost everybody, all retail companies and manufacturers of consumer goods. I don't understand why you single out gun owners, there is no logical reason for it.

3.) "Are you in favor of CHILD ACCESS PREVENTION legislation, which provides penalties for adults if a child gains access to a firearm stored in a negligent manner?"

Your choices for my answer:

a.) In favor
b.) Not in favor

My answer:

c.) Only in favor if you extend the legislation to every consumer product ever manufactured, and amend it so it only provides penalties when *actual harm is done*, instead of just mere possession.
This question is a variation of #2, which I have already answered extensively. This would also mean that we penalize parents if Junior hops into the family car and drives it around the yard, even if he doesn't cause any damage to himself or others. If you want to be rational, you need to apply your standards consistently...otherwise you will have to face accusations of hypocrisy.

4.) "Do you believe it's time for sane and rational Americans to influence gun control laws at every level of government, instead of the highly organized, lavishly funded National Rifle Association?"

Your choices for my answer:

a.) Yes
b.) No

My answer:

c.) This question is infuriating to me on many levels. I am not a member of the NRA, but with this line of questioning you imply that all NRA members--probably three million individual human beings--are by definition "insane" and "irrational".
Such a statement is the exact opposite of rationality, which you like to claim as your prerogative. You run the risk of being viewed just as "irrational and insane" by informed members of the public. It is inflammatory, unjust, untrue, and only serves to polarize and emotionalize an issue that would be easily resolved if *all* parties involved relied on logic and common sense.
As for the claim that gun control will curb gun violence, I have to point out that most gun violence is perpetrated by criminals who, by definition, do not adhere to laws. Someone intent on homicide, rape or robbery will not be deterred by a piece of legislation forbidding him the use of a firearm. Logically, how does your claim stand up to critical examination? Even complete handgun prohibition (such as introduced in the UK not too long ago) has not had a positive impact on violent crime rates. If anything, violent crime is on the rise in the UK, including firearm-related crimes.
By the way, "highly organized" and "lavishly funded" is spelled un-hyphenated.

5.) "Do you think that it makes sense to require people who want to own guns to pass a test and be licensed, the same way we require drivers to get a drivers' license?"

Your choices for my answer:

a.) Yes
b.) No

My answer:

c.) No, I don't think it makes sense. We issue drivers' licenses to drivers who wish to operate their vehicles on public roads. We do not require licenses to purchase vehicles, and you can drive your car unlicensed on your own property all day long without breaking any laws. If you want to treat guns "just like cars", you should only require a license to carry the weapon in public, not to merely buy and own one. If you are willing to equalize the law in that respect, I would support it.

6.) "Do you believe that the NRA is correct in its assertion that guns and gun ownership are protected by the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, without qualification, and that gun manufacturers are also protected by the Second Amendment?"

Your choices for my answer:

a.) Agree
b.) Disagree

My answer:

c.) I believe that the entire Constitution, amendments and all, applies to every person in this country, whether they are citizens, tourists, immigrants or even companies. Everybody enjoys the rights and shares the responsibilities outlined in the Constitution, "without qualification". Note the lack of asterisks in any of the Constitutional Amendments. If you need to "qualify" the Second Amendment, what keeps you from "qualifying" the First Amendment, or any of the others? If you declare the Second Amendment obsolete, how long is it going to take before you decide the same for the First Amendment? It is not up to you to decide which amendments are valid and which ones are not. If you wish to change the Constitution and remove the Second Amendment from it, you need to gather enough support for a two-thirds majority in Congress.

7.) "Are you aware that the most deadly product manufactured -- guns -- is not required to meet even the minimum safety standards requred by law for manufacturers of teddy bears or baby carriages?"

Your choices for my answer:

a.) Aware
b.) Unaware

My answer:

c.) First of all, please define "deadly" and explain to me the truth content of your statement. Do you define "deadly" by the product's fatal accident statistics? The car beats the gun in that respect by a mile. Do you define "deadly" by the certainty of death when the product is misused? Parachutes, airplanes and automobiles are far ahead of the handgun in that respect--handgun victims have an 80% survival rate, according to medical statistics. In any case, your claim of guns being the "most deadly product manufactured" seems to be baseless. Why are you willfully telling an untruth? Just because you can provoke an emotional response?
Secondly, we are talking about different products here, and they *naturally* have to adhere to different safety standards. The gun is a weapon, the teddy bear is a toy, and the baby carriage is a mode of transportation. Cars, for example, don't have to adhere to the same safety standards as teddy bears either, but I don't hear you pointing that out. The only way to make cars or guns as safe as teddy bears is to render them completely inert, robbing them of all intended functionality. Your argument is not only misleading, it is willfully fallacious, obviously just designed to trigger an emotional response. This suspicion is affirmed when one examines the language you use. By contrasting guns with baby carriages and teddy bears, you wish the reader to associate guns with being the opposite of the "safe, cuddly and child-related", positive teddy bears and baby carriages. Again, you are willfully polarizing the issue.
By the way, guns have to adhere to safety standards. They receive proofmarks at the factory, and they have to meet stringent material and manufacturing standards to withstand the stresses of high gas pressures. This needs to be done at least to avoid costly lawsuits by people whose guns would otherwise blow up in their faces while hunting ducks or shooting at paper targets. Contrary to what you want the public to believe, gun manufacturers actually have the safety of their customers in mind, regardless of litigious fallout.

8.) "Do you believe that guns should be regulated as consumer products?"

Your choices for my answer:

a.) Yes
b.) No

My answer:

c.) Guns are already some of the most regulated consumer products on the market. No other product has a federal criminal background check mandated as a condition on its purchase. No other product is regulated by so many wildly diverging state laws regarding its purchase, storage, possession and transportation. It is pointless to ask anyone whether they believe in regulation, it is in place already whether you believe in it or not. Asking the question merely tries to make people believe that the manufacture and sale of guns is unregulated, which is far from the truth.

9.) "Do you believe that all firearms sold in America should be 'child-proofed' so that they can only be fired by authorized users?"

Your choices for my answer:

a.) Yes
b.) No

My answer:

c.) This measure is debatable, and I am not principally opposed to it. I do, however, have a problem with transferring safety responsiblity onto an object rather than its operator. Do you requre a fingerprint check before starting a car to make sure that children don't use the family car without authorization? If you have an unresponsible owner, a safety mechanism will not shoulder some of that responsibility. There are also legal aspects to this issue: who would be responsible when the safety device malfunctions and the gun fires when it shouldn't; or doesn't fire when it should? The call of your organization seems to be "If it only saves one life, it will be worth it"; please extend the same logic to all aspects of your argument. If a safety device on a gun causes a death because of malfunction, the whole concept would be useless, since the death would not have occurred without the device. The safety of a gun lies entirely in the safe or unsafe actions of the owner, which is more than can be said about cars or airplanes.

10.) "Do you believe that all firearms sold in America should be equipped with indicators that tell if they are loaded, and requre magazine safety locks to prevent accidental or unintended firing?"

Your choices for my answer:

a.) Yes
b.) No

My answer:

c.) No, I do not. This question is a variation of #9, and my answer on that question holds true for this question as well. The safety of a gun lies in the way it is operated. The "safest" gun in the world will still fire when a negligent person pulls the trigger, no matter what the safety devices are. Again, please extend your logic to other consumer goods and require cars to be fitted with Breathalyzers wired to the ignition in order to prevent drunk driving. DUI costs far more lives in the US every year than the criminal misuse of firearms. And yes, even the little children die. Ban cars....because if it only saves one life....and shockingly enough, cars are not subject to the same safety standards as ..*gasp* ..teddy bears.

11.) "Do you agree with the position of many police officers that requiring guns to be registered would help to solve gun-related crimes and track the source of crime guns?"

Your choices for my answer:

a.) Yes
b.) No

My answer:

c.) The form of this question seems to imply that you have the authority of the police on your side, and that the police agree with you regarding gun registration. I happen to know *many* police officers who think that concealed carry by private citizens is a fabulous idea. Besides, countries like Australia have had less than great experiences with gun registration, with many of THEIR police officers doubting that gun registration has helped to solve even one crime.
Tracking a murder gun after the act may help find out where the murderer bought his gun (which already happens by tracing the serial number of the gun back to the selling dealer), but it does nothing at all to prevent the murder. How exactly does registration therefore prevent gun violence?

12.) "Are you aware that legislation requiring a waiting period for handgun purchases provides a safeguard to impulse suicides and "crimes of passion," because of the required "cooling off" period?"

Your choices for my answer:

a.) Yes
b.) No

My answer:

c.) Oh, does it? I wasn't aware that this was established, provable fact. Your question makes it sound that way.
There is no such thing as an "impulse suicide". Many suicide victims have had a previous attempt in their history. I have known two people that committed suicide, and neither of them used a firearm. If you are desperate enough to be willing to end your life, the method of suicide is secondary. Lack of access to a gun may make the suicide a little more difficult, but it won't prevent an "impulse" suicide. You don't wake up and all of a sudden have the urge to kill yourself; why do you think that this is a common occurrence?
Crimes of passion are just that. If somebody is worked up enough to kill somebody else, it won't matter whether they have a gun nearby, or a knife, or a backhoe. Lack of access to a gun has not deterred people from killing other people in moments of passion.

Let me stress again that I am insulted by the inflammatory, polarizing and patently untrue form of questioning you are trying to use to get statistics, which you can present your legislators as a mandate from the public. I will make sure to forward an email copy of this questionnaire to my legislators--to let them know just how your organization gets its statistics. You send this referendum to known supporters of liberal causes (which is how I received it, by virtue of being an ACLU member). Unfortunately for you, I am a libertarian with common sense, and I can see that you don't have a lot of that. I oppose your cause simply because you are willing to lie and mislead people to further it. You think you have the right to lie because the ends justify the means to you. By doing this, you are betting on a lost cause, because the issue of gun violence will only ever be resolved with common sense and mitigation.

I am sending you a check for $ 0.33 for postage expenditures; I do not wish to take anything from a dishonest and condescending group like yours.

I am also writing out a check for the $100 you asked for in your referendum, but I will send it to the National Rifle Association instead, to pay for a membership. Congratulations, your referendum has turned a liberty-minded individual into an NRA member. Keep up the good work.

Please remove my name from your mailing list.

Sincerely,

--Marko Cunningham

[This message has been edited by lendringser (edited January 28, 2000).]

[This message has been edited by lendringser (edited January 31, 2000).]

January 28, 2000, 10:39 AM	#1
Marko Kloos Senior Member Join Date: January 12, 2000 Location: Enfield, NH Posts: 5,521	I found a piece of mail from HCI in my mailbox yesterday. I doubt that they mail this crap out to a lot of people, so I'll share it with you, as well as my response letter. Let me know what you think. --- --- Dear staffer at Handgun Control, I recently received a referendum from you in the mail. It is titled "2000 Referendum on Guns and Violence", and it also asks for a contribution to your cause. I know that this mail will only be read by a staff member who is checking the incoming mail for contribution checks, and that this mail will probably never be read in its entirety by you. I therefore retain a copy of it for distribution to local newspapers and other publications. The "2000 Referendum on Guns and Violence" is a questionnaire containing twelve questions. You only provide checkboxes to choose between two possible answers to each of those questions. All of the questions are highly suggestive in nature, and the possible answers are formulated in such a way that makes it unlikely that anybody will ever contradict the general sentiment of the questionnaire. This angers me on two different levels. First of all, you assume that I am naive and uncritical enough to be content with your preformulated opinions, and that I do not hold my own. (One could argue that you may think my opinion does not matter if it is not what you want it to be). Secondly, your questionnaire states that my answers will be compiled with others and presented to members of Congress and state legislators. This leads me to believe that you will use the answers of a highly opinionated minority (the members of your mailing list that care enough to finish this questionnaire and send it back with a check), and pass it off as "the opinion of the American people", as in "80% of Americans polled agree with our point of view". While not a flat out lie--most of the people polled probably are Americans--it is a distortion of facts at best, since you fail to mention that the polled group is not exactly representative of the American populace at large. Therefore, I am returning the referendum on my own terms. I have listed your questions below, followed by my answers. I apologize if I hold an opinion that disqualifies me from the mindless and uncritical checking of boxes. For the record: I am not a member of any "pro-gun" organization, and all of the opinions listed below are my own. They are dictated to me by common sense. Here is your "Referendum on Guns and Violence": 1.) "Are you concerned that guns may be destroying the sense of security among American school children and their families because today's children have too easy access to guns?" Your choices for my answer: a.) Concerned b.) Unconcerned My answer: c.) No, because I don't agree with the premise of the question, and I also dispute its validity. Children today do not have easy access to guns when compared with children in the 1950s and 1960s. In those decades, it was quite common for children to bring their own rifles to school for ROTC training or field activities, and anybody could purchase guns via mail until the 1960s. There were no mass school shootings back then even though fireamrs were more easily obtained prior to 1968. These days, we have "zero tolerance" policies in schools that require parents to pack plastic knives into children's lunch boxes because butter knives are considered weapons, and somehow this lack of readily accessible weapons has not made our kids more peaceful and less violent. On a sidenote, school shootings are so sensational precisely because they are rare, not common. Your organization uses incidents like Columbine (where the shooters broke twenty-odd state and federal gun laws) to push knee-jerk legislation which won't do a bit to reduce violent crime. In a way, Handgun Control would lose its pull in Washington without those sensationalized and exploited school shootings. Therefore, I think we can argue that Handgun Control is one of the contributing factors to the "destruction of sense of security" among American children and their families, precisely because you exploit these incidents to fan emotions. 2.) "Are you aware that in most states an adult can leave a loaded handgun on the dining room table, within easy access of a child, and there are no legal consequences for doing so, and no consequences for the adult if the child uses the gun in a harmful way?" Your choices for my answer: a.) Aware b.) Unaware My answer: c.) I am aware of the fact that an adult can leave a chainsaw in the garage, fully gassed up, within easy reach of a child, without having to fear legal consequences either. I can hand the keys to the family car to a child and fear no legal repercussions for doing so. On the same note, I could leave a handgun within easy access of a child, and not have to worry about it being illegal. That said, why do you attest common sense to car and tool owners, but not to gun owners? All of the gun owners I know would never be irresponsible enough to leave a loaded weapon within the reach of an unsupervised child. Contrary to your claim, I am guilty of negligence if my kid saws his leg off with my chainsaw, and DSS would probably have a word with me. The same holds true for a gun accident. If you make it a felony for people to potentially facilitate a child's accident, you'd collapse the legal system with lawsuits against almost everybody, all retail companies and manufacturers of consumer goods. I don't understand why you single out gun owners, there is no logical reason for it. 3.) "Are you in favor of CHILD ACCESS PREVENTION legislation, which provides penalties for adults if a child gains access to a firearm stored in a negligent manner?" Your choices for my answer: a.) In favor b.) Not in favor My answer: c.) Only in favor if you extend the legislation to every consumer product ever manufactured, and amend it so it only provides penalties when actual harm is done, instead of just mere possession. This question is a variation of #2, which I have already answered extensively. This would also mean that we penalize parents if Junior hops into the family car and drives it around the yard, even if he doesn't cause any damage to himself or others. If you want to be rational, you need to apply your standards consistently...otherwise you will have to face accusations of hypocrisy. 4.) "Do you believe it's time for sane and rational Americans to influence gun control laws at every level of government, instead of the highly organized, lavishly funded National Rifle Association?" Your choices for my answer: a.) Yes b.) No My answer: c.) This question is infuriating to me on many levels. I am not a member of the NRA, but with this line of questioning you imply that all NRA members--probably three million individual human beings--are by definition "insane" and "irrational". Such a statement is the exact opposite of rationality, which you like to claim as your prerogative. You run the risk of being viewed just as "irrational and insane" by informed members of the public. It is inflammatory, unjust, untrue, and only serves to polarize and emotionalize an issue that would be easily resolved if all parties involved relied on logic and common sense. As for the claim that gun control will curb gun violence, I have to point out that most gun violence is perpetrated by criminals who, by definition, do not adhere to laws. Someone intent on homicide, rape or robbery will not be deterred by a piece of legislation forbidding him the use of a firearm. Logically, how does your claim stand up to critical examination? Even complete handgun prohibition (such as introduced in the UK not too long ago) has not had a positive impact on violent crime rates. If anything, violent crime is on the rise in the UK, including firearm-related crimes. By the way, "highly organized" and "lavishly funded" is spelled un-hyphenated. 5.) "Do you think that it makes sense to require people who want to own guns to pass a test and be licensed, the same way we require drivers to get a drivers' license?" Your choices for my answer: a.) Yes b.) No My answer: c.) No, I don't think it makes sense. We issue drivers' licenses to drivers who wish to operate their vehicles on public roads. We do not require licenses to purchase vehicles, and you can drive your car unlicensed on your own property all day long without breaking any laws. If you want to treat guns "just like cars", you should only require a license to carry the weapon in public, not to merely buy and own one. If you are willing to equalize the law in that respect, I would support it. 6.) "Do you believe that the NRA is correct in its assertion that guns and gun ownership are protected by the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, without qualification, and that gun manufacturers are also protected by the Second Amendment?" Your choices for my answer: a.) Agree b.) Disagree My answer: c.) I believe that the entire Constitution, amendments and all, applies to every person in this country, whether they are citizens, tourists, immigrants or even companies. Everybody enjoys the rights and shares the responsibilities outlined in the Constitution, "without qualification". Note the lack of asterisks in any of the Constitutional Amendments. If you need to "qualify" the Second Amendment, what keeps you from "qualifying" the First Amendment, or any of the others? If you declare the Second Amendment obsolete, how long is it going to take before you decide the same for the First Amendment? It is not up to you to decide which amendments are valid and which ones are not. If you wish to change the Constitution and remove the Second Amendment from it, you need to gather enough support for a two-thirds majority in Congress. 7.) "Are you aware that the most deadly product manufactured -- guns -- is not required to meet even the minimum safety standards requred by law for manufacturers of teddy bears or baby carriages?" Your choices for my answer: a.) Aware b.) Unaware My answer: c.) First of all, please define "deadly" and explain to me the truth content of your statement. Do you define "deadly" by the product's fatal accident statistics? The car beats the gun in that respect by a mile. Do you define "deadly" by the certainty of death when the product is misused? Parachutes, airplanes and automobiles are far ahead of the handgun in that respect--handgun victims have an 80% survival rate, according to medical statistics. In any case, your claim of guns being the "most deadly product manufactured" seems to be baseless. Why are you willfully telling an untruth? Just because you can provoke an emotional response? Secondly, we are talking about different products here, and they naturally have to adhere to different safety standards. The gun is a weapon, the teddy bear is a toy, and the baby carriage is a mode of transportation. Cars, for example, don't have to adhere to the same safety standards as teddy bears either, but I don't hear you pointing that out. The only way to make cars or guns as safe as teddy bears is to render them completely inert, robbing them of all intended functionality. Your argument is not only misleading, it is willfully fallacious, obviously just designed to trigger an emotional response. This suspicion is affirmed when one examines the language you use. By contrasting guns with baby carriages and teddy bears, you wish the reader to associate guns with being the opposite of the "safe, cuddly and child-related", positive teddy bears and baby carriages. Again, you are willfully polarizing the issue. By the way, guns have to adhere to safety standards. They receive proofmarks at the factory, and they have to meet stringent material and manufacturing standards to withstand the stresses of high gas pressures. This needs to be done at least to avoid costly lawsuits by people whose guns would otherwise blow up in their faces while hunting ducks or shooting at paper targets. Contrary to what you want the public to believe, gun manufacturers actually have the safety of their customers in mind, regardless of litigious fallout. 8.) "Do you believe that guns should be regulated as consumer products?" Your choices for my answer: a.) Yes b.) No My answer: c.) Guns are already some of the most regulated consumer products on the market. No other product has a federal criminal background check mandated as a condition on its purchase. No other product is regulated by so many wildly diverging state laws regarding its purchase, storage, possession and transportation. It is pointless to ask anyone whether they believe in regulation, it is in place already whether you believe in it or not. Asking the question merely tries to make people believe that the manufacture and sale of guns is unregulated, which is far from the truth. 9.) "Do you believe that all firearms sold in America should be 'child-proofed' so that they can only be fired by authorized users?" Your choices for my answer: a.) Yes b.) No My answer: c.) This measure is debatable, and I am not principally opposed to it. I do, however, have a problem with transferring safety responsiblity onto an object rather than its operator. Do you requre a fingerprint check before starting a car to make sure that children don't use the family car without authorization? If you have an unresponsible owner, a safety mechanism will not shoulder some of that responsibility. There are also legal aspects to this issue: who would be responsible when the safety device malfunctions and the gun fires when it shouldn't; or doesn't fire when it should? The call of your organization seems to be "If it only saves one life, it will be worth it"; please extend the same logic to all aspects of your argument. If a safety device on a gun causes a death because of malfunction, the whole concept would be useless, since the death would not have occurred without the device. The safety of a gun lies entirely in the safe or unsafe actions of the owner, which is more than can be said about cars or airplanes. 10.) "Do you believe that all firearms sold in America should be equipped with indicators that tell if they are loaded, and requre magazine safety locks to prevent accidental or unintended firing?" Your choices for my answer: a.) Yes b.) No My answer: c.) No, I do not. This question is a variation of #9, and my answer on that question holds true for this question as well. The safety of a gun lies in the way it is operated. The "safest" gun in the world will still fire when a negligent person pulls the trigger, no matter what the safety devices are. Again, please extend your logic to other consumer goods and require cars to be fitted with Breathalyzers wired to the ignition in order to prevent drunk driving. DUI costs far more lives in the US every year than the criminal misuse of firearms. And yes, even the little children die. Ban cars....because if it only saves one life....and shockingly enough, cars are not subject to the same safety standards as ..gasp ..teddy bears. 11.) "Do you agree with the position of many police officers that requiring guns to be registered would help to solve gun-related crimes and track the source of crime guns?" Your choices for my answer: a.) Yes b.) No My answer: c.) The form of this question seems to imply that you have the authority of the police on your side, and that the police agree with you regarding gun registration. I happen to know many police officers who think that concealed carry by private citizens is a fabulous idea. Besides, countries like Australia have had less than great experiences with gun registration, with many of THEIR police officers doubting that gun registration has helped to solve even one crime. Tracking a murder gun after the act may help find out where the murderer bought his gun (which already happens by tracing the serial number of the gun back to the selling dealer), but it does nothing at all to prevent the murder. How exactly does registration therefore prevent gun violence? 12.) "Are you aware that legislation requiring a waiting period for handgun purchases provides a safeguard to impulse suicides and "crimes of passion," because of the required "cooling off" period?" Your choices for my answer: a.) Yes b.) No My answer: c.) Oh, does it? I wasn't aware that this was established, provable fact. Your question makes it sound that way. There is no such thing as an "impulse suicide". Many suicide victims have had a previous attempt in their history. I have known two people that committed suicide, and neither of them used a firearm. If you are desperate enough to be willing to end your life, the method of suicide is secondary. Lack of access to a gun may make the suicide a little more difficult, but it won't prevent an "impulse" suicide. You don't wake up and all of a sudden have the urge to kill yourself; why do you think that this is a common occurrence? Crimes of passion are just that. If somebody is worked up enough to kill somebody else, it won't matter whether they have a gun nearby, or a knife, or a backhoe. Lack of access to a gun has not deterred people from killing other people in moments of passion. Let me stress again that I am insulted by the inflammatory, polarizing and patently untrue form of questioning you are trying to use to get statistics, which you can present your legislators as a mandate from the public. I will make sure to forward an email copy of this questionnaire to my legislators--to let them know just how your organization gets its statistics. You send this referendum to known supporters of liberal causes (which is how I received it, by virtue of being an ACLU member). Unfortunately for you, I am a libertarian with common sense, and I can see that you don't have a lot of that. I oppose your cause simply because you are willing to lie and mislead people to further it. You think you have the right to lie because the ends justify the means to you. By doing this, you are betting on a lost cause, because the issue of gun violence will only ever be resolved with common sense and mitigation. I am sending you a check for $ 0.33 for postage expenditures; I do not wish to take anything from a dishonest and condescending group like yours. I am also writing out a check for the $100 you asked for in your referendum, but I will send it to the National Rifle Association instead, to pay for a membership. Congratulations, your referendum has turned a liberty-minded individual into an NRA member. Keep up the good work. Please remove my name from your mailing list. Sincerely, --Marko Cunningham [This message has been edited by lendringser (edited January 28, 2000).] [This message has been edited by lendringser (edited January 31, 2000).]