Stephan:   In answer to a question several people asked me today: I do read the comments that you post. And I also read the emails many of you write me personally. If you have written me you know you have received a response. In both instances the piece yesterday about the NRA produced a lot of mail. The study Paul Smith cites in his comment is, I am sorry to say, very poorly designed, and reaches conclusions that are apples and oranges put together. It is junk science. Common sense should tell you that a bunch of armed civilians in a dark movie theater having a shoot out with some nutcase, with bullets flying around from all directions would not end well. Anyone who has been in combat in the service knows that having a number of people shooting at one another is very scary, and people lose control. Even supposedly well-trained police in all too many instances do so in a fire fight, and end up spraying bullets all over the place, often killing or wounding people in the vicinity who just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. There have been several recent examples of this. The NRA's idea of a paramilitary public, with everyone going around armed is insane. I mean really insane. I am not anti-gun. I was, until I got out of the service, where I was a medical corpsman, an avid competitive shooter. However, I was never interested in hunting, nor could I see it as a sport. I was by Army standards an expert marksman, and potential sniper. With a 30-06 and a scope, unless the deer also had a weapon, hunting to me was like shooting a cow in your driveway from your front door. Sport had nothing to do with it. However, I could see how it might be important as a source of protein for a family, although that was never relevant to my life. So although I don't hunt, don't even own a gun anymore, I can see its attraction, particularly in rural areas, and I think the Second Amendment is important. But I can see no reason whatever for a private citizen to own an assault rifle with a 100 round drum magazine, silencer, and special bullets -- all of which as one of my readers, Rick Berger, demonstrated to me can be purchased online in a few minutes. We require people who want to drive a car to be trained, licensed, and insured. And we have tens of thousands of uniformed men and women roaming the roads to enforce those rules. How is it possible that we ask so much less of individuals, so that they may obtain a device whose only real function is ending life under violent circumstances? -- Stephan