For those of you who read Robert Heinlein

[Garys]

Criminals are never materially handicapped by such rules; the only effect is to disarm the peaceful citizen and put him fully at the mercy of the lawless. Such rules look very pretty on paper; in practice they are as foolish and footless as the attempt of the mice to bell the cat.

This is an excerpt from a letter Heinlein wrote to his editor in 1949 regarding cuts to his book "Red Planet". There were a lot edits to make the book more acceptable to the intended "Juvenile" market. Several of those were related to the use of firearms. Heinlein and his editor Alice Dalgesh clashed over a number of things over the years.

Even back then there were Utopian dreamers that thought that disarming peaceful, law abiding citizens would solve the crime problem.

I don't know if anyone has summed the problem with gun control up better than he did 63 years ago.

BTW, after his death Red Planet was published as he wrote it without the edits.

 

[Boris]

Heinlein is one of my favorite writers, lots of wisdom.