Submitted by Ralph S. Brown, Mar 18, 2008 02:39

I am a retired Detective Police Sergeant and a member of The N.R.A. and that I feel that honest citizens have a right to protect themselves against violent criminals. The police cannot be every where to protects it citizens in this country. I have thirty three years experience in the law enforcement and I have worked on murder cases, robbey cases, burglary cases, theft cases, fraud cases and carjacking cases. When I worked on my cases I always did the best I could do for my victims which included working on my own time.

You take cities like New York, Chicago, ILL and Washington D.C. where they have these restrictive gun laws and you have a serious increase in violent crime such as murder, rape, robbery, burglary and assaults. The reason is the only people who have guns are your criminals who have no regard for any law to began with. This is one of the reasons people move out of these cities because they were victims or their family members were victim of violent crimes.

I noticed when Fox News was interviewing people on television all the citizens in Washington D.C. felt that they should own a gun to protect themselves because of all the crime. The citizens were saying the criminals have guns why should they be denied a right to own a gun because of The D.C. Law.

I noticed that 54 senators and 250 members of the house representatives along with V.C. President Dick Chaney also signed a brief for The U.S. Supreme Court to see. This tells me Washington D.C. is crime ridden with violent crime. This sends up a serious red flag.

I hope that all nine members of the supreme court liberal, moderate and conservative overturn The Washington D.C. gun ban. I feel this is an individual right not a collective right

I hate to say this but you do not want the rest of The United States like Washington D.C. There is nothing worse than a bad law which restricts a citizens freedom. This law in D.C. endangers the citizens lives that is why a lot of people who work in D.C. live in Virginia.

I have never had a problems with honest citizens owning handguns, rifles or shotguns however I do have a problems with criminals owning and using handguns, rifles and shotguns. I have sent a lot of these people to jail for committing violent crimes which I glad to do.

I know that the police officers in Washington D.C. do the best they can do with violent felons but this city as far as I can recall has always had a high crime rate. There are not enough police officers to protect its citizens.

Thank You

Sgt. Ralph Brown Retired Chattanooga Police Department

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