22 May 1996

Dear Mrs. Brady,

I have been compelled to write to you upon receiving your “National Public Safety Survey”. Madam, it is a ruse. My lukewarm respect however to your lawyer, who so obviously had a hand in writing it, for his effort, however deceitful, in composing a very good, to the untrained eye, impossible to answer questions. For it is not possible to give a correct answer without you and your associates making us, law abiding, concerned and caring citizens, feel like some bad and evil villains.

If you are truly interested in statistics, maybe you should inquire about the dramatic drop in the crime rate in the areas which have eased the restrictions on carrying a concealed weapon. As far as assault weapons are concerned, their purpose is to do one thing, kill people. Whether that be an intruder in my home or country, looking to do harm to my family or myself, or a civil government who, having resorted to despotism, is trying to usurp the Rights and property of the people makes not a difference; in the first case, I believe I have every Right to ill this person and in the second case I have, as Mr. Thomas Jefferson concludes, a Right and a Duty “to throw off such government”. An assault weapon is an option in the former instances and an absolute necessity in the latter.

Now concerning illegal gun sales or “back alley gun sales”, as you so stated, they are just that, illegal, and if more laws are made against them and law abiding citizens, they will still be this, illegal and continued anyway by those residing outside the laws of a civil society. The answer is tougher enforcement of current laws and making the punishment fit the crime.

Finally, on the matter of public safety. I live in an area of the country in which almost every household there is a gun, many more than one; yet we have one of the lowest rates of violent crime in the Nation. The reason is not tough gun control laws but education and a mutual respect for human Life.

Believe me Mrs. Brady, you have my deepest sympathy for what happened to your husband; you, however, lose standing with me when you lump me together with the sick individual who shot him.

There are many more guns in the United States, standing silent, as guarantors of Liberty and Freedom, in the hands of their owners then there are killing innocent victims (be sure not to classify those individuals killed in the commission of a crime as innocent victims).

If you wish to send me an unbiased, unslanted and not deceptively written survey in the future I will be happy to answer it. As for the present one, I am forwarding it to the N.R.A. with a copy of this letter and my contribution to help them restore and protect my Rights as a law abiding citizen of the United States of America.

Sincerely,
Thomas Hansen