An Open Letter to Vice-President Biden

Dear Joe:

Congratulations on your appointment to lead a presidential commission to end gun-related violence.

As an NRA Board member, husband, father, grandfather, law enforcement officer, and genuinely concerned American, I too want nothing more than to see these evil, senseless massacres stopped.  I concur with the president and caring people everywhere–it’s time to end these slaughters.

As you gather your team to study these massacres and how to stop them, I offer to you my services and a lifetime of expertise on guns in all their implementations.  While I strongly differ with the president on many issues, I agree with him that we must work with all we can possibly muster to end these massacres.

As you begin to formulate your thoughts on how to proceed with your task, I hope your starting point is to provide the president with the facts regarding these slaughters and to offer him common sense recommendations that are void of a political agenda and that will actually make a meaningful difference.  If the American people smell a political agenda here, that will only bog down our efforts.

In the spirit of goodwill and a deep desire to end these gut-wrenching, incredibly sad, senseless rampages, I offer you the following recommendations.

I encourage you to get President Obama to lead this effort by providing a number of public service announcements.  These announcements should include watching out for each other, encouraging parents to be more involved in their children’s lives regarding entertainment choices, and various indicators we should watch for in people who are unstable.

Clearly, the focus on solving these mass murders must be on the mentally ill.  In almost every mass killing instance, there were ample red flags and warning alarms that were either avoided or not acted upon by mental health professionals, family members, friends and acquaintances.  While I deeply respect an individual’s privacy and civil liberties, the American people need basic awareness on what indicators to look for regarding potential violent psychotic people.  Our collective safety begins with being collectively vigilant.

You will find in your assessment that all of these massacres have occurred in gun free zones.  What gun free zones create is an environment whereby good people are unarmed and virtually defenseless against a psychotic intent on committing mass murder.  Gun free zones are modern killing fields. I implore you to recommend that Congress pass a law to ban gun free zones immediately.

Just like your full-time armed security detail, qualified citizens with authorized, legal concealed carry permits should be able to carry weapons virtually everywhere to protect themselves, their loved ones and innocents.

I also implore you to strongly consider recommending that trained school officials have access to a weapon to protect the students.  Just as airline pilots may have access to a weapon to prevent another 9-11 mass murder, school officials should also be trained to stop mass murder at our schools.

What I don’t encourage you to recommend is to ban any weapon, magazine capacity, or type of ammunition.  That won’t solve anything other than to prevent the 99.999 percent of responsible, law-abiding Americans from enjoying these modern weapons as we do now.  We should never recommend or develop public policy that restricts the rights of the good guys based upon what evil people do or might do.  If that were the case, alcohol would still be banned.  As you may know, drunk drivers kill an estimated 12,000 Americans each year and hurt tens of thousands more.

I encourage you to also keep  this misnamed “gun violence” in perspective.  While all deaths are tragic, the vast majority of gun-related deaths and violence are committed by gang members who do not use guns that only look like, but do not perform like, military assault weapons.  The majority of crime where a firearm is used is committed with handguns.  I concurred with you back in 2008 when you stated, “If he (Barack Obama) tries to fool with my Beretta, he’s got a problem.” I trust you still maintain these sentiments.

Again, I offer you my services and a lifetime of expertise.  I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,