"Move to China."
That was the whole e-mail, and my favorite of all the many responses to my most-recent column.
Gee, who would have thought writing that Charlton Heston had blood on his cold, dead hands would upset some folks who feel strongly about the right to bear arms?
Go figure.
Just in case you missed it, here's part of what I wrote:
As president of the National Rifle Association, actor Charlton Heston was fond of stating that the only way gun-control advocates would take away his weapons would be "from my cold, dead hands."
... That said, Heston died with a lot of innocent blood on those cold, dead hands.
He and his buddies at the NRA are to a great extent responsible for the staggering daily misery and heartbreak caused by the out-of-control gun culture in this country.
I believed it when I wrote it, and I believe it as I write this.
Nothing I have seen or heard comes close to being as persuasive as the gun-related deaths of an average of 80 Americans every day.
More than twice that many are wounded by guns every day.
That's almost 30,000 gun deaths each year in this country by accident, suicide and crime.
The United Kingdom, which I think we all can agree has a pretty good democracy going, suffered a mere 210 deaths by guns in 2006.
That means in only three days, the United States has more deaths from firearms than England has all year. Even figuring the U.S. has 300 million residents and the U.K. 60 million, the gun toll ratio is still appalling.
That said, the 50 some-odd (some far odder than others) e-mails, letters and phone calls criticizing my column have been a revelation.
They have come from outraged local residents and from as far away as Canada and England.
I've genuinely enjoyed talking to those who, while fervently disagreeing with me, kept the conversation civil. Clearly, there are many responsible and educated advocates for the NRA.
Nice people. We could be friends who happen to think the other is terribly misguided.
Then, there those who simply brought their own anger, prejudices and tortured reasoning into their writings. Some questioned my patriotism, others my courage, and a few got downright nasty.
Some of the "logic" astounded me. One guy essentially said that if only the Jews of Europe were allowed to have guns, the Holocaust wouldn't have happened.
Another person attributed the misery of blacks after the Civil War to the reasoning that "black freeman (sic) were prohibited from owning guns, by the KKK."
Then there was the gentleman who asserted his right to bear arms "because our forefathers recognized that when gov't goes astray, it is my right to defend myself, my family and my property against that gov't."
The Army, Navy and Marines will certainly think twice about going up against this character now that they know he's got a gun.
Whew!
I wonder what some of those people would have written had I not said this in my column:
I'm all for hunters having the firearms they need, and I suppose it's not unreasonable for a person to have a gun to protect family, property and self.
How somebody could get the idea from that paragraph or the rest of the column that I'm against people hunting and fishing is rather baffling, and yet ...
"I like to hunt and fish," a man wrote, "and now my grandkids are doing it with me. You want to take it all away, because you are out of touch with reality."
Several folks took seriously my feeble attempt at humor in recounting my adolescent crush on Jane Fonda. This, despite the column stating that I didn't approve of her visit to North Vietnam in 1972 to give aid and comfort to our enemies.
One person wrote: "The only reason I can think of for such strange conflicting decisions is that you are (a) chauvinist, sexist person, and the sexuality and attractiveness of Ms. Fonda overrode your moral compass."
Absolutely correct, and a darned fair criticism. But I like to think of myself as a former chauvinist, sexist person who has learned a thing or two since I was 15.
By the way, I didn't just tick off gun folks and Charlton Heston fans in that column. I also managed to offend a reader in England (reading the column on the blessed Internet) who didn't like me mentioning actor Mel Gibson's anti-Semitic episodes.
"The question now is," she wrote, "can I now read your articles knowing that you are a biased, self-righteous, holier-than-thou pontificating ... quill pusher?"
Sure, why not? As biased, self-righteous, holier-than-thou pontificating quill pushers go, I'm really not that bad of a guy.
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Sam Pollak is editor of The Daily Star. He can be reached at spollak@thedailystar.com or at (607) 432-1000, ext. 208.
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