Responding to Brady: The Letter the Blade refused to print

Editor's Note: The following letter was submitted to the Toledo Blade in response to an op-ed written by the John Shanks, Director of the Law Enforcement Relations for the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. True to form, Shanks jumped at the opportunity to dance in the blood of a slain Toledo police officer, who died despite a plethora of failed Toledo gun control laws. The anti-gun Blade has not seen fit to publish this rebuttal.

To the editors:

The op ed piece by Mr. John Shanks, Director of the Law Enforcement Relations for the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence published this weekend leaves a disturbing tone and lack of content for the reader.

Under current law both suspects charged with the heinous crime of killing of Toledo Police Detective Keith Dressel were prohibited from legally buying handguns. I find it interesting that in fact both of these suspects apparently violated most of the Toledo firearms laws and neither has been charged with these violations, now or for their past violations. Why?

Click on 'Read More' for the entire letter.

He states “The alleged shooter is too young to buy a pack of cigarettes, but we have laws on the books to keep young people from buying smokes, and a huge enforcement effort to go along with it.” If this is so effective, why do I see many young teens with the smokes? If the laws on the smokes are so effective, wouldn’t enforcement of the many gun laws already on the books accomplish the same thing?

Mr. Shanks concludes “Background checks and identification must be verified and records must be kept as to who is selling and who is buying guns in our communities. Then we would see an impact on gun crime, and a reduction in the senseless deaths of our citizens.” As recent report from the FBI on a five year study about cop attackers and their weapons shows that of the offenders interviewed none was hindered by any law – federal, state or local – that has ever been established to prevent gun ownership. The report further states that the offenders “just laughed at gun laws”.

Might this be another “inconvenient truth”?

Gary Hoff
Middletown, OH

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