Drafting a letter, please comment

[Caliper_Mi]

I am preparing a letter to my legislators. It is sure to join a pile of others they are getting, but that's how things are I guess. I plan to send this to both State and National legislators. Looking for feedback. Too long? Well worded? Too much? Open to comment, or feel free to copy and send to your legislators if it's GTG.

Guns aren't the problem.

Dear Senator/Representative
Like everyone else in the Nation, I was shaken this past Friday by news of the massacre in Connecticut. How someone could ever consider harming innocent schoolchildren is beyond me. Some are using this tragedy to call for more gun regulation or even bans. I am writing today to state that I do not support additional gun regulations.
We have seen in other countries where guns are heavily regulated that people will just steal guns or use other weapons to commit their crimes. Even in China where private gun ownership is outright banned, sick individuals have attacked schools armed with knives and killed many children. I feel that it is time we stop living a fantasy that we can simply leave a building full of the most important members of our society unprotected. With a society of 300 million individuals there are always bound to be several among us who are not stable and do not respect the same values the rest of us do. Believing that we can simply lock the doors to keep out a criminal bent on violence is not realistic. Further, we have seen in many similar scenarios that as soon as the criminal is faced with an armed defender instead of defenseless victims that the criminal will typically surrender or turn their weapons on themselves. Yet, police are typically miles away, giving any criminal attacker plenty of time to commit their crimes against our children. I feel that this is a clear signal our schools should have some form of on-site and armed police protection. While this idea may be distasteful to some, the fact is that having one or several armed individuals on site to defend the school would have drastically changed the course of events in Connecticut, possibly stopping the criminal in the halls before he reached a classroom. I hope you will consider this path in the coming days and weeks as the Nation debates this issue.

Sincerely,

 

[hso]

Are you sure that calling for LE at each and every school is the solution to the problem when of all the mass shootings grade schools are only a small subset of mass shootings?

Of the 5 mass shootings in 2012 only 2 involved grade schools. Insisting on having LE at each school might help address school shootings, but it wouldn't address mass shootings in general.

If you're going to take this approach you need to advocate for all the other benefits having an officer at school to help justify the massive expense of nearly 100,000 grade schools being supported this way. Ensuring proper legal procedure is followed in searches, immediate response to non-firearms violence in school, deterrence of bullying, traffic control are all benefits of having a police officer onsite during school hours.

 

[Texan Scott]

Polish this up and send it to your state lawmakers, by all means.

I understand the desire to demand that SOMEONE (even the wrong someone?) must do SOMETHING (even the wrong something?) to make us feel (feel!) safer, but...

Why would you involve the federal government? They have no Constitutionally legitimate authority in matters of education, state gun law, or local law enforcement. Certainly they may CLAIM to, but by asking them to intervene over state authority, you are legitimizing those claims and paving the way for further federal encroachment on states' rights and infringement on individual liberties.

Please don't rally support for giving the federal government more power over my state's lawmakers or local police authority.

 

[Caliper_Mi]

hso: My feeling is that CCW is the answer for incidents in places outside schools. We just haven't reached the tipping point where there are enough CCW'ers. Fl just reached 1M permits? What percentage of those permit holders practice everyday carry and what percentage of those would still carry in a posted "gun free zone" such as the Clackamas mall or Aurora theater?

Scott: Good point about Federal power vs schools, I should have caught that.

So, with input from here and elsewhere, revision 2. The last paragraph will be in my letters to the President, Congressmen and Representative in DC and then changed to a state-level wording for letters to my state Representatives.

Also, what are your thoughts for medium: email for expediency or paper mail for greater impact? Would both email and paper latter be considered rude or would it even be noticed?

Dear Senator/Representative

Like everyone else in the Nation, I was shaken this past Friday by news of the massacre in Connecticut. How someone could ever consider harming innocent schoolchildren is beyond me. Some are using this tragedy to call for more gun regulation or even bans. I am writing today to state that I do not support additional gun regulations.

We have seen in other countries where guns are heavily regulated that people will just steal guns or use other weapons to commit their crimes. Even in China where private gun ownership is outright banned, sick individuals have attacked schools armed with knives and killed many children. We cannot afford to believe that we can simply leave a building full of the most important members of our society unprotected. With a society of 300 million individuals there are always bound to be several among us who are not stable and do not respect the same values the rest of us do. Believing that we can simply lock the doors to keep out a criminal bent on violence is not realistic.

Further, many similar scenarios have shown that as soon as the criminal is faced with an armed defender instead of defenseless victims, the criminal will typically surrender or turn their weapons on themselves. Yet, police are typically miles away, giving any criminal attacker plenty of time to commit their crimes against our children. This is a clear signal our schools should have some form of on-site and armed protection, be it police, trained volunteers or armed teachers. While this idea may be distasteful to some, the fact is that having one or several armed individuals on site to defend the school would have drastically changed the course of events in Connecticut, possibly stopping the criminal in the halls before he reached a classroom.

I call on you and our other legislators in Washington to end the current National policy of creating zones of defenseless victims for these evil individuals to perpetrate their crimes upon. Instead supply Federal funds to provide our schools with the means to train and equip whomever they deem best fit to provide an effective defense for the precious children under their protection.

Sincerely,