After calming down from my outrage and then forwarding this to a few friends and fellow Second Amendment supporters, it was suggested that I submit it to be posted as an article on the website. As an introduction, I will submit the e-mail I received from my employer.

It is my belief that he is proud of his wife's opinions and, perhaps, he hoped to sway my vote concerning the right to keep and bear arms. He certainly "hit his mark" but it ricocheted and I doubt the outcome is for what he had hoped! Please note that I have not changed any of her writing. The text is just as I received and, therefore, any and all errors are as typed (as will be any of mine in response as well). The only change made has been to leave off her signature since I have not asked permission to share her opinion.

"Dear Friends,

Last year we experienced first hand what I've only read about in the newspapers or watched on television. Every time I heard about the latest shooting of our children my heart sank wondering how we got so out of control in our country.

The "right to bear arms" and it's intention by our forefathers has changed. It's the year 2000 and we have a very different society now. Our children are now exposed to violent movies, graphic television coverage of school shootings, road rage where guns have killed others, the decline of respect for another's life, the fear of guns that could be brought to their own school, the killing of the boy at Paradise Valley Mall, the killing of the boy who attended Desert Shadows HS at 32nd Street and Shea at a party (he was a friend of my friends son - a great athletic student who was at the wrong place at the wrong time), my old Jazzercise instructor friend who lost her daughter at age 17 to a random shooting at a high school party in the desert of Cave Creek (she was a honor student, cheerleader and in student government), and now the tragic death of our friend's daughter, SHANNON SMITH, to a random gun shot that was fired into the air and lodged in the back of her head has she talked to a friend on the phone in the security of her own backyard.

Please consider carefully the direction of our future and the safety of our children when you vote on Tuesday. Thanks"

My first response was, not surprisingly to those of you who comprehend and are fighting for what our forefathers' intent was, outrage. After a few days, however, I calmed down (a little) and decided that perhaps I would feel better if I sent her a thoughtful response. I may or may not do so, considering that her husband is my employer and I still cherish the ability to live in a relatively secure and comfortable home that my earnings as his employee permit me.

Before any of you become outraged at that confession, please know that I have attempted to point out to her the fallacy of her beliefs but, apparently, to no avail. When I tried to speak to her about it, it was after biting my tongue quietly on several occasions, the first one being after the Columbine debacle when she proudly announced to me that she had decorated her family van with "Wake up, America" and some other such nonsense, to the general effect that guns are the problem and if we would just get rid of the guns, there will be no more problem. The next time she came in and self-righteously proclaimed, "Did you see me on the news at the MMM downtown this weekend?"

At this exhilarated outburst from her, I could no longer stand quietly and pretend not to hear. It was an anxious moment for me but I felt much better after I stood my ground.

I told her that, no, I hadn't seen her -- as I handed her some literature I had just printed from KABA about our Second Amendment Rights -- and she gasped, "You're on the other side!" I nodded and before I could explain why, she quickly asked, "Were you demonstrating at the march?" I said no, that I had not attended the march. She then told me, "They were calling us names. They were calling us commie mommies!" I think that moniker really stumped her. She could not make the connection. Perhaps she was absent from school on the day they taught the rest of us about communism.

I explained that I didn't attend the march due to how emotionally charged this issue was and that I didn't think my increasingly outraged presence at that point in time would do anything to further the cause for which I stood before her that day. I explained that I felt my beliefs would best be supported by continuing to educate myself and others to what our future will be like if those in her camp win their war.

I attempted to explain to her that I agreed it was a terrible tragedy that this young woman had been taken from her parents and friends in this manner but that this tragic incident would not have been prevented if guns were outlawed, to which she quickly inserted, "Oh, we don't want them to be outlawed. We just want registration to be a requirement." To this statement, I somewhat less calmly informed her that I had been researching the issue and my sources informed me that in every other area where registration had become a requirement, within a varying period of time, confiscation of those registered firearms was what followed. Perhaps she was out of ammunition [pun intended], as she suddenly remembered an important appointment she had and, agreeing to read the literature I provided, quickly hurried out the door.

She has never mentioned it again to me. I suspect she threw away the information I provided as soon as she was out of sight. I realize that when people would rather believe in unjustified causes, they really are not interested in the truth of the matter.

Perhaps that is why I still don't know if I will send this missive back to her and to her husband, my employer. They are slightly older than I and seem very confident that there should be no question but that they are right. In her defense, I can say that she seems to earnestly do the best she can at mothering her children, the youngest of whom is about 10 and the eldest is 18 and off at college. Let's hope the children learn to think for themselves. After all, it's their children's future as well as my own that these well-intentioned parents are so eager to cast aside.

Through my careful and cautious self-education, I have come to understand this issue enough to be quite confident that whoever shot that bullet into the air (and other like-minded individuals) are not the kinds of citizens who obey any of the existing laws. By no stretch of my imagination can I envision that instilling yet more laws to register our firearms will prevent anyone as careless as they from similar irresponsible behavior.

Perhaps education is the answer. Perhaps not. I am told that the lady who wrote the e-mail to which I reply here is a college graduate.

Another pro-arms friend recently told me as we discussed what could be done to save our rights and what we can do if we can't save them, "Forgive them for they know not what they do." I would not make much of a spiritual leader as I am outraged that there are those who have the self-righteous audacity to insist on imposing their factually incorrect beliefs on me.

I don't know the answers, either, but I know that registration isn't it. And neither is confiscation.

"Question authority, before it questions you."

Sincerely,

[email protected]

P.S. Perhaps her false sense of security comes from the fact that they live in an exclusive gated, guarded community far-removed from where I live. Let's hope for their sakes if they get their way through legislation that they can keep up the payments where they reside or they might have to live in the kind of world which they envision for us.

Beautiful, Cindy.  Have you shown her The Questions yet? ~~ KABA