Bebop wrote:
Sounds like you need to write a responce to that persons letter.
When the writer of "Playing hero can make bad situation (sic) worse" (Letters, Sept. 8) exhorts the newspaper to print his letter because not doing so is the equivalent of censorship of an anti-self-defense position, he falls into a trap created through gross oversimplification. Why can't the newspaper be concerned about the reaction of its readers, that miscreants will be forced to take to the streets for their free speech? I find his remarks about "daydreaming about being a hero" -- hence banning the carry of firearms -- juvenile and poorly thought out. In order for him to have his delusions, he is willing to put the rest of us at risk. What happens if someone reads his letter, gets stressed out, storms off and gets in a fight with an agitated, scruffy individual? Will the writer get in the face and assault the undercover cop who happened to read the same inane letter?
What if during a free speech rally, he wears a shirt that causes someone to get angry at him, to come up and stab him and others he's with are killed? The writer would have single-shirtedly turned a protest into a murder scene.
My advice to the writer is to stop choosing to exercise his free speech as is his right under both the US and Arizona Constitutions and to think about the downside to using free speech to remove one right that is specifically enumerated. Yes, he might get guns restricted to levels he likes, but he might take away his right to the very speech used, making a bad situation considerably worse.