Originally published on this website on June 9, 2000

Drum Major Officials:

Date sent: Wed, 7 Jun 2000 06:46:34 -0700 (PDT)
From: Wyatt T Martin Subject: Your Ad In USA Today
To: William Wachtel ,John McConnell ,Andrea Young ,Matthew Goldstein ,Adrew Young , John Marino ,Leslie Huell DiMitri ,Bernard Nussbaum

Dear Sir or Madam,

I saw your ad in USA Today (June 6, 2000) and I had to stop and write to you. I hope that I might encourage you to thoroughly examine the facts and figures you cite and perhaps offer a more balanced variety of information.

>Gun buybacks generally bring junk guns or guns criminals want to dispose of.

This means that criminals can simply wait until the next gun buy back to dispose of that latest murder weapon. Not only are they protected from possible prosecution by anonymity they are rewarded for their cleverness with tax dollars never intended for the purpose of coddling criminals. The other guns collected by these dubious programs are usually from people in dangerous neighborhoods who might well profit from having a gun one day to protect themselves end their loved ones.

>Why would a civil rights organization support a government in disarming its own people?

The latest instance of a government totally disarming their own people comes from Germany in the time of Adolf Hilter's reign. Is this an example of a desirable result in your estimation?

>Are you aware of the racist roots of gun control?

To use the image of a fallen leader, Martin Luther King, Jr, who struggled for equality for people of color his entire adult life in a campaign to weaken and disarm those very same people seems misguided at best. While it's true that Dr. King advocated non-violence, particularly in demonstrations of civil disobedience, I don't believe that he was in favor of dismantling the Constitution that guaranteed the very rights he was seeking to be granted for all people.

>13 kids a day is a bigger lie than even Bill Clinton is willing to tell.

Even counting gang members, suicides, drug dealers, and the people shot by cops won't yield a number that high today. Please provide the source of the false number or retract your false statement from the Americans who received this lie.

>Are you morally and emotionally prepared to deal with the fact that some of the people who bought your lie will turn in their weapon, be defenseless, and be victimized? Or do the people you claim to serve truly matter?

Disarming law abiding citizens will not reduce crime. In fact in true scientific studies conducted by John Lott it's been shown that more guns in the hands of law abiding citizen leads to less crime rather than more. If you think for a moment you'll realize that criminals would much rather face an disarmed victim rather than an armed citizen. In light of that how can you advocate disarming these potential victims?

I appreciate your attempt at presenting a balanced gathering of statements from "America's notable public officials" however I'd like to point out that your ad is misleading in that it refers to H. Carl McCall, Coretta Scott King, and an inanimate object (the NRA's Fact Sheet) as public officials. That term is usually reserved for those who have been elected to an public office like the remainder of the people you quote. As it is two out of ten quotes in your ad are from the positon you are opposing. In the future I'm sure that you can do better than attempting to lead people to believe that only twenty percent of elected representatives oppose those who would throw away the freedoms that our forefathers fought time after time to preserve.

Sincerly,

W T Martin
Atlanta, GA