Wrote a letter to an idiot columnist in my paper..
This little diddy greeted me when I opened my morning paper: http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_5723179
So, I wrote this response:
Ms. Dawid,
I just read your column, "No need for assault weapons," in today's Denver Post. I noted that you are a former educator.
I assume that, over the course of your years as a teacher, you encouraged your students to research topics prior to writing about them. You state, in your second paragraph, the following:
"Eight years later, I revisit that horror and wonder -- repetitively and boringly -- why we allow access to multiple-magazine hanguns and semi-automatic machine guns."
With all due respect, Ms. Dawid, you come across as exceedingly uninformed. Semi-automatic firearms are NOT machine guns. Machine guns are fully-automatic and require a special Class 3 license from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms in order to even possess one. These licenses are very difficult to come by, and the BATF seriously investigates anyone before allowing them to have said license.
Cho did not have a machine gun. He had a semi-automatic weapon. I invite you, as an educator, to investigate and learn the differences between the two. Cho did not fire his weapons automatically, his Glock and Walther were not designed to do so.
You keep bringing up in your article the term "assault weapon." I'll invite you to define what an "assault weapon" is. If you are uanable to do so, with factual information, then I suggest that you follow some advice that I'm sure you've offered your students in the past: You shouldn't use words that you cannot define.
Moreover, you label firearms that you do not understand as "weapons of mass destruction." This label is false and misleading.
Does the Second Amendment entitle you or me to buy a handgun? You bet, and this right has been upheld by the United States Court of Appeals within just the last month.
In the future, before you compose misleading and erroneous information, it might behoove you to investigate facts rather than issuing baseless, emotional reactions and passing them off as factual. Were I grading your article, I would give you a failing grade due to a lack of research.
Sincerely,
xxxx
So, I wrote this response:
Ms. Dawid,
I just read your column, "No need for assault weapons," in today's Denver Post. I noted that you are a former educator.
I assume that, over the course of your years as a teacher, you encouraged your students to research topics prior to writing about them. You state, in your second paragraph, the following:
"Eight years later, I revisit that horror and wonder -- repetitively and boringly -- why we allow access to multiple-magazine hanguns and semi-automatic machine guns."
With all due respect, Ms. Dawid, you come across as exceedingly uninformed. Semi-automatic firearms are NOT machine guns. Machine guns are fully-automatic and require a special Class 3 license from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms in order to even possess one. These licenses are very difficult to come by, and the BATF seriously investigates anyone before allowing them to have said license.
Cho did not have a machine gun. He had a semi-automatic weapon. I invite you, as an educator, to investigate and learn the differences between the two. Cho did not fire his weapons automatically, his Glock and Walther were not designed to do so.
You keep bringing up in your article the term "assault weapon." I'll invite you to define what an "assault weapon" is. If you are uanable to do so, with factual information, then I suggest that you follow some advice that I'm sure you've offered your students in the past: You shouldn't use words that you cannot define.
Moreover, you label firearms that you do not understand as "weapons of mass destruction." This label is false and misleading.
Does the Second Amendment entitle you or me to buy a handgun? You bet, and this right has been upheld by the United States Court of Appeals within just the last month.
In the future, before you compose misleading and erroneous information, it might behoove you to investigate facts rather than issuing baseless, emotional reactions and passing them off as factual. Were I grading your article, I would give you a failing grade due to a lack of research.
Sincerely,
xxxx
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WHAT THE HELL IS A "SEMI-AUTOMATIC MACHINE GUN"? 0 -
quote:Originally posted by HeavyBarrel
WHAT THE HELL IS A "SEMI-AUTOMATIC MACHINE GUN"?
That's what I want to know!0 -
I'm posting a more detailed response in my blog, as her publisher and mine are the same. 0 -
I liked your response .
While you're on your soapbox , what's your "beef" with PBS ?
Me....I'm more known for watching Nova , Red Green show , Rick Steves' Europe , Antiques Roadshow , History Detectives , Austin City Limits , Globe Trekker , Nature , Secrets of the Dead , As Time Goes By with Judi Dench and from time to time (past my bedtime) Charlie Rose .
I'm not too keen on many of their news programs .
What say you ? What's your main beef ?
SxS0 -
quote:Originally posted by HeavyBarrel
WHAT THE HELL IS A "SEMI-AUTOMATIC MACHINE GUN"?
Thats my thoughts also.[:(!][:(!][:(!]0 -
Well put!
Right on, brother.0 -
Oh my god she is an idiot. 0 -
Great response spanielsells!
The woman is clueless. What about the DC snipers who fired one shot at a time over a period of weeks to kill several people. All that could have been accomplished with a single shot rifle.
This woman needs to understand it is not the firearm, it is Murderers and that is where stronger laws need to be in place.
Cho could have been prevented if the law didn't protect him as a mentally defective person and made that information publically available so the gun sales would not have gone through.0 -
"Second Ammendment purists" AHHHHHAHAHAHAHAHA!
I think she's a first ammendment purist. I don't believe uneducated articles like that should be printed.0 -
I love how you graded her at the end. That's great. lol 0 -
what a moron 0 -
Well said, good letter and response!
PBS does lean very hard to the liberal side. There programing is good in some cases but they also have a liberal, socialist agenda.0 -
amen spaniel 0 -
If the person that wrote that column made that many errors then how many errors does she make on other columns she writes? Would you be able to trust the accuracy of what she says? 0 -
quote:Originally posted by SXSMAN
I liked your response .
While you're on your soapbox , what's your "beef" with PBS ?
Me....I'm more known for watching Nova , Red Green show , Rick Steves' Europe , Antiques Roadshow , History Detectives , Austin City Limits , Globe Trekker , Nature , Secrets of the Dead , As Time Goes By with Judi Dench and from time to time (past my bedtime) Charlie Rose .
I'm not too keen on many of their news programs .
What say you ? What's your main beef ?
SxS
SxS,
It would be the stuff you don't watch -- their incredibly-biased news reporting.0 -
Just the kind of reporting I would expect from a newspaper that doesn't allow the public to advertise firearms for sale.
They will never see another dime from me, and I told them why. Not that they care.0 -
Excellent letter Spaniel. What is it with our educators? Do they need more education?
http://forums.gunbroker.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2438880 -
Very nicely worded and presented, spanielsells. You get an A+ but don't feel too badly if this teacher does not ever get the idea.
There is a unique smugness and arrogance in being so diametrically opposed to our Constitutional right to own a gun.0 -
Excellent letter.
+10 -
Me say - I wouldn't listen/watch anything that nest of pbs communist snakes presented, if you paid me.
D.0 -
Letter sent. 0 -
quote:Originally posted by spanielsells
quote:Originally posted by SXSMAN
I liked your response .
While you're on your soapbox , what's your "beef" with PBS ?
Me....I'm more known for watching Nova , Red Green show , Rick Steves' Europe , Antiques Roadshow , History Detectives , Austin City Limits , Globe Trekker , Nature , Secrets of the Dead , As Time Goes By with Judi Dench and from time to time (past my bedtime) Charlie Rose .
I'm not too keen on many of their news programs .
What say you ? What's your main beef ?
SxS
SxS,
It would be the stuff you don't watch -- their incredibly-biased news reporting.
Ah yes , again we see eye to eye .
SxS [^]0 -
good deal spaniel, when are they gonna learn. guns don't kill people, people kill people. heck you can do it with a hammer.[;)] 0 -
Good response... but as I understand it you dont need to be a class 3 to own a machinegun. Thats only the dealer who transfers the weapon to you (as long as its a pre-86). 0 -
Spaniels: I'm glad you wrote to her. I wonder if she ever taught her students about history? If so, I wonder if she ever had them participate in discussing history and weapons? I also wonder how many Americans really know who they have to thank for paving the way to the life and liberties they enjoy today?
It's Annie Dawid's type of warped reasoning that continues to cause folks all over the world to lose their freedoms. If you write to her again, you might want to remind her that's the line that ignorant people have been pushing since mankind transitioned from rocks to bows, bows to muskets, and muskets to cartridge guns. Ask her where Denver, and specifically, Littleton, Colorado would be today had it not been for their first white settler, or repeating rifles, or for that matter, pioneers like him and his family, if only criminals, or their enemies had had the latest in weaponry: (He is said to have spoke five different Indian languages and to have been kin to Kit)
http://www.littletongov.org/history/biographies/mcbroom.asp0 -
quote:Originally posted by kimi
Spaniels: I'm glad you wrote to her. I wonder if she ever taught her students about history? If so, I wonder if she ever had them participate in discussing history and weapons? I also wonder how many Americans really know who they have to thank for paving the way to the life and liberties they enjoy today?
It's Annie Dawid's type of warped reasoning that continues to cause folks all over the world to lose their freedoms. If you write to her again, you might want to remind her that's the line that ignorant people have been pushing since mankind transitioned from rocks to bows, bows to muskets, and muskets to cartridge guns. Ask her where Denver, and specifically, Littleton, Colorado would be today had it not been for their first white settler, or repeating rifles, or for that matter, pioneers like him and his family, if only criminals, or their enemies had had the latest in weaponry: (He is said to have spoke five different Indian languages and to have been kin to Kit)
http://www.littletongov.org/history/biographies/mcbroom.asp
Thanks for the link.
I went ahead and published a more detailed and informative retort to her in my blog. I'll let you guys know if she even responds to me -- my guess is that she wouldn't. Most chickenhearted gun-grabbers are great at taking potshots and lousy at taking criticism, no matter how polite it is (and, I thought my response was rather polite to her considering how infuriated it made me).0 -
quote:Originally posted by wipala
what a moron
Hey now, you may not like the way I write, but I ain't a moron! [;)]0 -
Comment: Clearly you have not researched your topic in the least. "Machine guns" are only sold to Federal class III license holders, can no longer be imported as of 1984 and can only be manufactured for sale to law enforcement. As for your "Semi-automatic machine gun" there is no such thing. A machine gun, by definition, is one capable of discharge of multiple cartridges with a single pull of the trigger. Semi-automatic firearms require a pull of the trigger for each discharge. I have no doubt that you will consider this differentiation irrelevant but it is entirely relevant as such terms are used in an inflammatory way and tend to mislead the average (below average) reader of your rhetoric. The firearms that you attempt to describe are owned by law abiding sportsmen. In fact they do have a legitimate use, as is evidenced by at least one photo of a shop owner defending his property, family and his own life during a riot in CA. As I understand it, no shots were fired by this person, and his property was left alone. The tragedy at VT, and yes, it was a tragedy, was not caused by guns. That gun laws contributed to it is arguable. The VT campus was known to be a "Safe Zone," where guns were not allowed. This could only encourage the shooter, who obviously chose to act in violation of many laws. Fast forward, hypothetically, if you will, to a moment when your utopian society in which law abiding citizens cannot own firearms is achieved. To suggest that criminals will abide by such laws is absurd, these are people who exist by breaking and not obeying the law. It should be noted that the law abiding citizens of Australia turned in their firearms pursuant to similar laws. Armed robbery has increased by 44% since then, with overall increases in violent crime including murder. I also suspect that, were friearms unavailable to this shooter he would have found a way to do as much or more damage by employng other means. Large low and high explosive devices are easily made from available components. Motor vehicles kill far more than your imaginary "semi-automatic machine guns, multiple magazine pistols and assault rifles" because the latter does not exist. Even those firearms you would describe as such contribute only to a fraction of the deaths caused by motor vehicles. It must be frustrating for you and all the others who consider solution of such a complicated problem so easily accomplished by altering the Bill of Rights and US Constitution to realize that this is still a nation "Of, By and For The People," and not one of by and for hysterical alarmists. That the elected officials did not vote in the way you approve is a reminder that the majority still has a voice in our government. In closing I would suggest that, if you feel you have a point, express it in such a way as to reflect the truth and not your misconceptions as regards any issue. You have lost all credibility, in my opinion. Sincerely, 0 -
News papers these days are a joke. Incompetence reigns from the editors on down. The recent NRA convention here in Saint Louis brought in 60,000+ paying attendees who injected an estimated ten million plus into the local economy. What's the headline lead article in Sundays news section? An obviously anti gun/NRA article! 0 -
Here's a shocker... I didn't get a response from her yet. [:o)]
This was my blog entry, which I'm hoping my publisher will see fit to stick in the same general area that Dawid's column appears:
quote:In the April 22, 2007 edition of The Denver Post, on page 6E, there is a column entitled No need for assault weapons by Annie Dawid. Ms. Dawid explains several times that she is a former educator, and therefore, We The People are lead to believe that she knows how to research and investigate topics prior to writing about them.
Were I grading Ms. Dawid's rant, I'd fail her.
Her column, of course, is based upon the tragedy at Virginia Tech. Ms. Dawid, however, misses so many facts that it becomes difficult to imagine what sort of facts she was passing along to students in the classes she taught.
In her second paragraph, Ms. Dawid states: Eight years later, I revisit that horror and wonder - repetitively and boringly - why we allow access to multiple-magazine handguns and semi-automatic machine guns.
What has Ms. Dawid written that is factually inaccurate? Semi-automatic firearms are not machine guns. Machine guns are fully-automatic firearms. They are heavily regulated by the government, and it is almost impossible to obtain a license to possess one. They are not sold at gun shops and are not available at gun shows. But, if Ms. Dawid and her kind can convince the uneducated public that semi-automatic guns are machine guns, then that might frighten people into willingly giving away a constitutional right.
One might excuse her terminology as an innocent slip of the fingers, except for the fact that she continues in the next paragraph by stating: With automatic gunfire, no such intervention is possible.
Again, there was no automatic gunfire with regard to the Virginia Tech massacre. But, never let facts get in the way of Ms. Dawid's uninformed rant. After all, she's the educator, I'm just some guy with a column.
But, because Ms. Dawid is an educator, I hold her to a higher standard. Many who do not support gun rights enjoy using the terms assault weapon or assault rifle and Ms. Dawid does not disappoint, as she uses one of the terms in her column. So, I ask her or anyone else what those terms mean. Simply put, if one cannot offer a definitive definition of the term, then it is inappropriate to use that term. As an educator, I'm sure Ms. Dawid offered that bit of advice over the course of her career.
She does touch on something truthful, when she states: People will always want to kill one another. She should have stopped there, because she would have understood that gun control accomplishes nothing with regard to saving lives. But, again, don't let facts get in the way of a good rant about banning guns.
In the same paragraph, Ms. Dawid again demonstrates her ignorance: We regulate the way we drive; we say who can and cannot drink alcohol, who can and cannot vote. This is a common rant by the gun-grabbers, and each time it sickens me because, unfortunately, we allow these uninformed people to vote. I've hauled out my copy of the United States Constitution, and goshdarnitall, I can't find the 28 th Amendment that states you have a right to drive, the 29 th Amendment that states you have the right to Keep and Bear Alcohol, and the 30 th Amendment that guarantees felons and children the right to vote. But, I can find the Second Amendment, which states: 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.
The normal, knee-jerk reaction to that is demonstrated quite well by Ms. Dawid, when she asks: Does the Second Amendment entitle you or me to buy a weapon of mass destruction? How does such a weapon link any one citizen to a "well-regulated militia"?
Dawid demonstrates a common misunderstanding of the Second Amendment. She, like many other do-gooders, read the Bill of Rights and see that individual citizens are guaranteed the right to free speech (no matter how wrong that speech is), the right to practice a religion (or be free to practice no religion), the freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures, the right to a fair trial, etc. Yet, for some reason, that pesky Second Amendment trips them up. The Bill of Rights offers ordinary citizens everything except the Second, which somehow offers the State some guaranteed rights. Think about that for a moment or two and try to rationalize why the Founding Fathers would want to grant rights to the State. The fact is that they didn't, and this is evidenced time and time again by their extra-Constitutional writings. Do a search in Google and look for yourself.
A very recent court decision, the United States Court of Appeals struck down Washington, D.C.'s ban on guns ( Parker v. District of Columbia No. 04-7041), rejecting the argument that the Second Amendment applies only to militias, and that forcing citizens to license handguns and storing them unloaded is in violation of that Amendment. The Court indicated that, yes, indeed, the Second, like the others in the Bill of Rights, was not a collective right and instead was an individual right.
So, to answer Ms. Dawid's question, yes, the Second Amendment does entitle you or me to buy a weapon (I'll leave out the mass destruction portion of her question since it is based upon a fallacy), and that said weapon does not need to link any one citizen to a "well-regulated militia."
Reprinted by permission of the author0
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