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| AS I SEE IT: Responsible gun
owners need to honestly face reality
By NORENCE A. NELSON - Special
to The Star Now the Missouri legislature seeks to override Proposition B, a fair referendum on concealed carry that failed to produce what proponents wanted. Don't they understand the meaning of no? I write as a shooting sports enthusiast and gun owner for nearly 45 years. Both sides of the gun issue have stilted data to support their positions. I've read John R. Lott Jr.'s book More Guns Less Crime twice. Lott relies on "estimated statistics" (an oxymoron) to support his conclusions. Statistics are supposed to be concrete and factual. Torture numbers long enough and they'll confess to anything. I know I'm cynical, but an ammunition company underwrote the Lott report. Anti-gun groups say to restrict all guns. The other side implies that I have a right to carry a concealed weapon. Concealable firearms were virtually unknown to the framers of the Constitution. What to do? Take this challenge. It is painful for some pro-gun people, like myself, to take, but it is fair. Draw a line down the middle of a page, making two columns. At the top of one column write "CRISTO," an acronym for "crimes stopped." At the top of the next column write "UFDA," which stands for "unplanned firearm deaths and accidents." Think back through your life and list every time you personally knew someone who stopped a crime because they had a gun. That's a CRISTO. Then, excluding suicides and hunting accidents, list each incident you remember where there was an unplanned firearms event, causing death or bodily harm. An UFDA. Do not include anything from the media unless you know the family or the victim. Be honest with yourself. This may take several days. When you are finished, ask yourself, am I really safer with a loaded gun close at hand? Your conclusions are based on your own life experiences. Where does the cliche, "When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns" come from? Consider this. We learn our attitudes about guns as small children going to movies and watching television. The formula is always the same. Good guy with gun overcomes evil because he can shoot straight. Because we romanticize this formula, each time we see it, it is reinforced and becomes reality to us. The formula is fantasy. My challenge is reality. Challenge others.
Norence A. Nelson is a freelance writer and lives in Waverly, Mo., with his wife, two bird dogs and three canoes. Waverly is in Lafayette county at the confluence of 24 and 65 highways on the right bank of the Missouri R. From http://www.555-1212.com
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An Analysis of
reality
By Jacques Tucker, Captain, U.
S. Marine Corps (retired) A "fair" referendum that was demonized by the dominant media in Missouri, the US DOJ and Mel Carnahan while proponents were truthful. Hmmm. Has Mel's ghost inhabited Nor's body? It isn't about "shooting sports," Nor.
Has Mr. Nelson read the Second Edition, I wonder. Just where in any version of Lott's book does it refer to "estimated statistics?" Thomas Sowell says, "More Guns, Less Crime is one of the most important books of our time. It provides thoroughly researched facts on the life-and-death subject that is too often discussed on the basis of unsubstantiated beliefs and hysterical emotions." It is indeed unfortunate that Mr. Nelson neglected to use "concrete and factual" information to compose his opinion piece. Actually, Mr. Nelson is not cynical. He is ignorant. William Simon, President of the Olin Foundation and former Secretary of the Treasury demolished that scurrilous allegation in 1996. Would that Nor lived in Vermont, no question that he could carry concealed. Did not Nelson do any research on the subject? Amazing that Nor is descended from a Revolutionary person, his mother was a member of the DAR. I thought Cristo was that goofy "artist" who covered the sidewalks in Loose Park with yellow fabric. Oh, an acronym. OK, Nor.
If someone stopped a crime by merely making a potential perpetrator aware the potential victim is armed, how often does the someone announce to the world or even friends, acquaintances, family of that occurrence? Are we not in a catch-22 here? Lessee here. Nelson could be from Neilson or Nilsson. In Scandanavia they say UFDA as a term of derision. Oh, oops, another acronym. OK, Nor. Do not believe anything from the media unless you were there and saw it yourself. Only believe what you have experienced. Ignore empirical data compiled by others. Ignore valid comparisons. Ignore the lessons your parents have drilled into your mind (if you are lucky enough to have sentient parents.) "If fingers are outlawed, only outlaws..." Cliché is defined as a "stock phrase." Some clichés are truisms. Some clichés are redundancies. Some clichés are illusionary. If you want to shoot straight, it is important to practice. I admire and probably overuse the cliché straight shooter. Being a straight shooter implies that you are telling the truth. That you have done your research. That you have integrity. That you are honest and have no underlying agenda. That you have not been compromised or compensated to violate your principles. Straight shooters are good.
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