Response to Letter from disillusioned supporter, opponent?

Thanks for your letter. I'm sure many people have similar questions as they read the recent police charges, so this is a good opportunity re-examine the stand taken by Bruce Montague.

• Bruce has no criminal record and is an upstanding, respected citizen
• Bruce has practiced peaceful public protest, and principled non-compliance against unconstitutional (unlawful) laws for several years.
• The "from my cold dead hands" quote is rhetoric used by former NRA President Charlton Heston, not Bruce Montague.
• Bruce has invested huge amounts of travel, time, and money to effect peaceful political change.
• Firearms were Bruce's business (as a full-time gunsmith) so it would be expected that he might have a wide variety of guns and some books on the subject
• All firearms are basically designed to do the same thing. That is, fire a projectile out the end of a barrel, period.
• Guns are versatile tools that can be used in many ways, including target shooting, hunting, self defense, or simply as part of a collection to help people remember our fading heritage. How the tool is used is the responsibility of the owner.
• In the hands of a bad person, every kind of gun is a significant threat to innocent human life. In the hands of a good person, however, a gun is a sufficient argument to convince a bad person not to take innocent human life. Professor Gary Mauser of Simon Fraser University did a study on the defensive use of firearms in Canada and found that guns are used over 60,000 times a year by average Canadians to protect themselves from dangerous people or animals.
• I live in the city where home invasions are common and often fatal. I'd feel a lot safer if I were Bruce's neighbour.
• Good men with good guns are a net benefit to society.

I hope those considerations help put things in persepctive.

Sincerely,

Webmaster