Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns From: [t--x] at [netcom.com] (Thomas B. Cox) Subject: DiFi Reply to WSJ Date: Fri, 2 Sep 1994 21:47:17 GMT 12070 SW Fischer Road, E-206 Tigard, OR 97224 September 1, 1994 The Editors The Wall Street Journal 200 Liberty Street New York, NY 10281 Dear Sirs: Thank you for printing Dianne Feinstein's letter on 01-Sept-94. She provides us with an unusually concise example of factual errors in the cause of gun control. Ms. Feinstein refers to 19 weapons named in the recent crime bill as "fast-firing", when in fact they fire no more rapidly than the 650 "legitimate hunting and sporting guns" that the same bill protects by name. This is not a matter of politics, ideology, or interpretation; it is a matter of physics. This is not a matter on which reasonable persons of good will may disagree; it is objectively verifiable. I hereby offer Ms. Feinstein $1,000 if she can demonstrate that her 19 "bad" guns fire three shots so much as one millisecond more rapidly than my choice of any "legitimate" gun from her list of 650. She states that "cops and children are getting killed every day". She fails to note that cops are killed on the job in ever-lower numbers each year, continuing a twenty year trend. She also fails to note that the number of people killed with "assault weapons", using the broadest and newest definition for that term, is exceeded by the number killed annually with baseball bats, or for that matter with hands and feet. She states that a flash suppressor is useful to soldiers "so the enemy can't see them fire at night". Alas, Ms. Feinstein, a flash suppressor only hides the flash from the operator of the gun. For it to hide the flash from the enemy, that enemy would have to be behind the soldier. She states that over 1,000 TEC-9 series guns were "traced to gun crimes by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms" in 1993, but fails to mention that few of these traces were for violent crimes. The majority were non-violent gun crimes, typically illegal possession -- hardly the scourge of the streets she depicts. Indeed a count of all weapons involved in violent crime -- not just the biased sample that the BATF traces, but all of them -- shows that "assault weapons" are used even less frequently than they appear in the general population. If she cannot tell the difference between a "gun crime" and a violent crime, I'd be happy to explain. If the case for banning "assault weapons" were as clear cut as Ms. Feinstein would like us to believe, then clearly she should be able to make her case while staying within the bounds of fact. Sincerely, Thomas B. Cox cc: Internet newsgroups: or.politics, talk.politics.guns -- Thomas Cox [t--x] at [netcom.com] PGP Key Available -- finger [t--x] at [netcom.com.]