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I don't want to hijack this thread and I realize that this is long, so feel free to delete if necessary and I'll start a thread of my own. I just wanted to share an email that I just sent to Sen. Saslaw:
Senator Saslaw,
After reading an article in the Bristol Herald Courier dated Tuesday, May 11, 2008 and entitled "Guns in restaurants draw stares but little outcry", I feel compelled to voice my concerns with your current stand on gun rights.
While you may be a very fine man, your views on gun ownership and gun rights could not more wrong. One thing that you are correct about is that the article quotes you as saying "What normal person walks around with a gun on your hip? Something's wrong in your life." As much as I hate to admit it, you are entirely correct. There are LOTS of things wrong in life. That's the whole reason that I walk around with a gun on my hip. There are lots of things wrong in your life also.
There are lots of things wrong in everyone's life. For you to imply that someone shouldn't employ means to protect themselves and their loved ones is beyond words. Let me tell you a story.
Oct. 4th, 2007- I received a frantic call from my wife around 3:00pm stating that she had just come home with my 3 young sons to find that the back door had been kicked in. During the course of our conversation, she said that she heard someone upstairs. I immediately told her to get the boys and get out of the house. She went to a friends house and I left work to head home, (a 55 minute drive).
I arrived home and to my good fortune happened to have a single shot .410 shotgun and some ammo in my outdoor building because my oldest son and I had gone squirrel hunting the previous morning. I went into the house with the shotgun and shells to clear the house of any remaining danger and noticed that the intruders had stolen all of my guns and ammo except for one shotgun that remained in the gun safe. My wife had been in the house with armed intruders with my three small children. After clearing the house, I called 911 at 4:30pm. At 6:30pm, I called 911 back and was told that they had not dispatched anyone yet. Apparently I called right at the shift change and had gotten "lost in the shuffle". At 7:30pm, a Washington County, VA deputy pulled up in my driveway, apologized for taking so long and took about 4 pictures of the crime scene.
The intruders had touched at least 4 doors in my house along with my gun safe. When I asked the deputy if he was planning on taking fingerprints he replied "there are too many CSI shows on TV nowadays. Nobody leaves fingerprints anymore." When I pressed him and insisted, he went out to his trunk to look and said that he "must have left his fingerprint kit at the station". He then left and I never heard another word from them.
I was told that he would check the pawn shops in the area. For the next 6 weeks, I went every Saturday to every pawn shop and gun shop within 50 miles and gave them pictures and descriptionsof the guns and told them to be on the lookout for a deputy asking about them. Never once did anyone come in asking about the guns describe. It was less than a month later that I had my CHP in hand.
It wasn't two weeks later that someone was trying to kick down my back door screaming for some lady that I'd never heard of. When I confronted him, he was sweating profusely, shaking, as white as a sheet and his pupils were completely dilated. I had to actually draw a my .40 pistol to get his attention. This guy lives not 3 miles from my home and I see him almost daily. He had his two small children in the truck with him and I had to threaten to shoot him before he left. But not before spewing all sorts of obscenities at my own children. We have never had contact again.
Less than one year later and I got stopped in a traffic stop less than 3 miles from my home. Actually it was directly in front of the former gentleman's house. The state police officer that stopped me asked for ID. I displayed my license and CHP. He asked me if I was carrying and I told him that I was. He asked that I keep it in view at all times and keep my hands clear of it. No problem. He then asked if he could look in the back of my jeep. I didn't have a problem with it and opened it up and let him see the back and the back seat. I asked him what this was about and he showed me a picture of a guy and asked if I recognized him. I told him that I did. Less than a month before, I had caught the guy in the picture trespassing on my dock on the piece of river front that I own. When asked to leave, he got beligerant (he was profusely drunk anyway), and he and his friends started threatening me and my oldest son who happened to be with me. I actually had to draw the weapon on him also when he started towards me.
It turns out that this guy had been displayed on America's Most Wanted and they had tried to apprehend him two houses down from mine. He was a convicted sex offender from Pennsylvania and had run to my town to escape new charges of child molestation and was on the run.
I realize that this is rather long and detailed. However, I wanted to make a point that you are ABSOLUTELY correct. People that walk around with guns on their hips do, indeed, have something wrong in their lives. The problem is that people that don't walk around with guns on their hips have something wrong in their lives as well. They just choose not to do anything about it until it is sometimes too late.
I can't say that I agree with you as much on your choice to support VA Tech in their unconstitutional decision not to allow law abiding students the basic right of self defense. But that is an email for a different day. . .
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