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Old 23-03-07, 16:14
rob love rob love is offline
carrier mech
 
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Shilo MB, the armpit of Canada
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Quote:
The Hill Times, March 19th, 2007
LETTERS

To understand misuse of guns, look at Texas
Re: "Millions use firearms safely," by Barry Glasgow (The Hill Times, Letter to the Editor, March 5).

In response to my earlier letter ("Ordinary people misuse guns too," Feb. 19), Barry Glasgow writes: "Letter writer Mahmood Elahi claims that 'Many ordinary people are prone to misuse guns especially when they are too depressed, paranoid, angry or jealous,' yet no data was presented to back this up." Well, I provided lots of data which The Hill Times edited out. I mentioned Texas as a case study of the havoc caused by the proliferation of guns in private hands. I would again like to draw the attention to what is happening in Texas with highest number of guns in private hands

When 14-year-old Juan Ramon got angry after a family row, he didn't kick the family dog or sulk, he did what many Texans traditionally do when they get very angry: with a family gun ready at hand, he started shooting. He shot a dog and injured three neighbours, before killing a cop who had answered an emergency call. Later in the day, Juan Ramon was killed in a hail of police bullets.

Nobody really knows why Juan did it–everyone knows if there were no guns in the house, this would not have taken place. Juan Ramon's weekend shooting spree was quickly followed by several other shooting deaths–and all within weeks of the Feb. 28, 1993, shootout at the Branch Davidian cult's compound near Waco. In the Lone Star state, the national capital of the gun culture, such stark tragedies are nothing unusual.

Texas has a population of about 17 million. Between them, they own 68 million guns–or four guns for every man, woman and child. Texas has no state gun registry law and Houston has more gun dealers than any other city. Not surprisingly, thousands are being cut down by gunfire every year in Texas.

After Waco, The Houston Chronicle railed against the Texan gun cuture. It decried the Waco killings, recalling also the 1991 massacre at Luby's Restaurant in nearby Killeen where a deranged man armed with an assault rifle shot dead 22 people.

The confusion and indifference over what to do about the anarchic proliferation of guns is not confined to Texas. Shootings by students at various schools in America have shocked the nation many times. In a bizarre case of domestic violence, Michigan Representative Raymond Murphy was charged for allegedly using a pistol to threaten his wife because she didn't bring him leftovers from a picnic. If the wife also had a gun, certainly there would have been a gunfight with dire consequences. Last week, a disgruntled eployee at a printshop in California shot three of his fellow employees to death because he was unhappy with his boss.

Mahmood Elahi
Ottawa, Ont.
Here was a letter to the editor a Liberal sent in here in Canada re the Texas gun culture. Makes it sould like you guys are running a shooting gallery there.
This was posted on canadiangunnutz.com, whose members did not share the authors selective vision regarding the right to self defense.
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