The vast vast majority of us are children or grandchildren of immigrants. Trying to acertain anything based on a person's last name is unreliable at best and downright insulting at worst.
Anyways, my grandfather came from the Netherlands as a young baby. The family still has the basinette he came over in. I remember seeing it as a young lad of 7 or so, and being told basically word for word that statement. My first thoughts were 'WOW! Moses floating down the river doesn't hold a candle to grandpa!' invisioning in my young mind this basinette bobbing along the ocean.
Anyways, Massad Ayoob is a highly respected gunwriter and spends a lot of time in courtrooms as a 'firearms expert' to counterbalance what the jurors think they know after decades of watching TV.
I do have one minor beef with the man however. He is a proponet of posting on the internet with your given name. Something about 'hiding behind a pseudonym and theirfore not being open to critque of claimed expertise etc.' While there are some valid points that anyone can claim anything on the internet, it seems a simple solution that if you really want to challenge or discuss something further, PMing them and asking them for their identity to back up claimed credentials is all that is required.
Anyone on here who has a beef with me, a disagreement, or desires to properly credit a quote, all you have to do is PM me, I;ll give you my real name and address.
Thing is, by openly listing your name on internet forums, anyone can google and find your phone number and address, and that makes it easy for idiots to harrass posters. I see using a pseudonym on the internet as no different than a writer simply listing his name but leaving off his phone number and home address. If a reader needs to contact the writer, he must send his communication 'care of the editor' placing at least one barrier between the named writer and the reader. Same thing with using a pseudonym. I suspect most magazine and newspaper writers and TV reporters have unlisted numbers so you cannot phonebook search the nation with 3 keystrokes and give them a call, or easily dig up personal info.
http://web.public-records-now.com/S...ty=&state=&criteria=massad;;;;ayoob;;;;;;;;;;
That's a lot less information than when I type in names of people I know. Heck, sometimes it even comes up with a listing of 'known relatives' including the person's children.
That's why I don't post using my given name, but if anyone needs to talk to me direct, I won't 'hide' behind it, just ask.
p.s. this is also the reason I am against news media posting lists of names of who has CCW, even if they only include names and not phone numbers or addresses.