Give me feedback on this letter please

[joshs21]

I will admit, in my 22 years of life nothing has made me want to write a letter to editor of a newspaper until today. There was a letter claiming stricter gun control can prevent events such as Virgina Tech. I refuse to let claims such as this go uncontested. I will copy and paste the letter from the paper, and also my response letter. I have yet to submit mine, because I wanted some feedback first. Thank you in advance for any input.

More gun control

To the Editor:

The shootings at Virginia Tech show that there should be strict gun control in the United States.

These liberal laws to own a gun are killing many innocent students in high schools, universities and local communities.

We have seen so many shootings almost every week in different states and different communities, schools and universities. If this young man who was a shooter had a knife, he would have stabbed one or two students. He would not have the weapon to shoot 33 students and injure many other students.

This is my appeal to the legislators that there should be strict gun control in the United States. Our youths, community people and school children are being killed unnecessarily. There are some angry people in the communities, but at least they will not shoot large numbers of students and people in the communities.
___________________________________________

Stricter Gun Laws Not the Answer

To the Editor:

This is a response to the letter to the editor that appeared in Saturday’s Southern Illinoisan titled “More gun control.”

It is always warming to see people from all over come together to mourn such a terrible tragedy. However, it is in times such as these that it is all the easier to let emotion bleed into the reasoning process and point the finger of blame where it does not belong.

Blaming gun laws or anything else for that matter, for a tragedy such as what occurred at Virginia Tech is irresponsible and an insult to anyone who felt the affects and sadness of the event. The only entity responsible for the crime is the one which committed the act, the shooter. He deserves absolute blame, and to remove any amount of guilt at all from his shoulders is offensive to everyone.

Illinois is one of only two remaining states where concealed carry of a firearm is absolutely forbidden. Anytime you mention concealed carry in this state you are sure to raise some eyebrows. In Virginia, concealed carry is allowed with a permit, but denied on the campus of Virginia Tech because of school policy. The truth is that concealed carry does not help to cause or escalate situations such as this; it provides alternative means to diffuse them when all other options have been exhausted. Stricter gun laws are not the answer here.

 

[joshs21]

Also, I didn't really want to make it sound like i was pushing an agenda for ccw.

 

[cuervo]

The truth is that concealed carry does not help to cause or escalate situations such as this; it provides alternative means to diffuse them when all other options have been exhausted

I might say something along the lines of

The truth is that concealed carry does not cause or escalate situations such as these, or necessarily even prevent them; it provides a possible means to stop them. Had VT allowed concealed carry on campus, chances are that there still would have been the two murders in the West Ambler Johnston Hall because Mr. Cho was intent on committing murder regardless of the law. However, had VT allowed concealed carry on campus, it is also very likely that there would not have been 30 murders in Norris Hall because Mr. Cho's rampage would have been stopped in its tracks by a fellow student or instructor.

to point out that Cho was intent on killing that day, but he would have been stopped much earlier with CCW.

 

[230RN]

Good. Make it a trifle shorter.

I once spoke to a newspaper editor and his "favorite" pattern was three paragraphs: Introduction, statement of case, appeal to reason. Five lines, twenty lines, five lines.

He also pointed out that your terse and trenchant prose on an 8 1/2 X 11 inch page turns out to be many many column inches when it's printed --depending on the opinion page format.

Those were his brackets, and I more or less follow that pattern --any excursions are caaaarefully weighed.

I'm thinking on my next one that I'm going to close with a paraquote from an Australian Blogger I spotted the other day:

It took many bullets to accomplish that tragedy last week. It would have taken only one going the other way to stop it.

And don't apologize here for stumping for CCW. That seems to be our best prybar right now.

Oh. I almost forgot. He said he can't stand it when somebody quotes A2. He said it always makes him think of the fringe crayon crowd. His words. Not mine. But he's the pro, not me.

 

[antsi]

-quote-
an insult to anyone who felt the affects and sadness of the event
-------

Should be "effects" instead of "affects" in this context.

-quote-
The only entity responsible for the crime is the one which committed the act, the shooter.
-------

Always go for clarity and brevity: "The only person responsible for the crime is the one who committed it; the shooter."
Or, "Responsibility for this crime rests solely with the shooter."

I don't think "diffuse" is a good description of the impact of CCW on a public shooting situation.

Always good to think of when writing: what is your main point?
You seem to have a number here:
1) inappropriate assignment of blame for VT shootings
2) offensiveness of assigning blame inappropriately
3) potential impact of CCW laws
4) ineffectiveness of gun control laws
Usually in a short piece of writing it is best to pick one main point and stick with it.

 

[joshs21]

Thanks for all the input. I made a few corrections and submitted it. It was tough only writing ~240 words when I could've written ten pages on all the crap floating around.

And the reason I used entity instead of person is I was trying to point out how the original writer blamed the laws, and I wanted to reference that in my writing. It was what I could come up with at the time. It was 2 in the morning and I had just gotten off a 9 hour shift from work.