Fascinating. Nobody should be allowed to own a gun because they MIGHT shoot somebody innocent with one.

But Saddam should be allowed to finish constructing nuclear weapons and actually use one on somebody before we can do anything about it. Go figure.

When the FBIs statistics that 25 friends and family members are killed for every bad guy come that close to home, they come alive.

The statistic is bogus, cooked up not by the FBI but by an anti-gun group. The usual number mentioned is 43, not 25, and of those, 37 were suicides. Obviously, since we are talking deaths, the number of criminals deterred by the display or presence of a gun, or even those merely wounded, are not counted. It is estimated that for every gun death, 65 lives are saved. My own running of the numbers shows from 20 to 30, but I don't have complete statistics handy.

I am sorry about your cousin, and I know it makes you feel better to think that if a gun hadn't been handy, a man in a murderous, drunken rage would have not been able to commit any violence.