From: [g--o--s] at [nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov] (Walter Douglas Gross) Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns Subject: LEAA (Law Enforcement gun-rights group) invites letters to newspaper! Date: 29 Dec 1993 14:04 EDT Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit What Is In This Message 1) Letter from Jim Fotis of the LEAA (Law Enforcement Alliance of America, a gun-rights organization of law enforcement officers and interested civilians.) This letter, originally paper-mail to LEAA members, is placed on the net with permission, and invites all readers to send true "non-officer citizen uses gun to prevent/stop a crime" stories to a Washington Post columnist who has openly asked for them. **** ----> PLEASE DO NOT e-mail any responses to me, the person who is **** ----> posting this item to the e-news. Any responses go to the **** ----> Washington Post (address given below.) Thank you. **** ----> As Mr. Fotis adds at the end of his letter, if you would like **** ----> to respond, time is of the essence. 2) Information on the LEAA; including their addresses (since they ask that you send them copies of what you may send to Mr. Twomey) and in case you want to join the LEAA. Personal plug: this is a *_great_* gun-rights group. Their newsletter is excellent. They are pro-active and they are straight arrows. They were major players in the campaign to expose Time-Warner's hypocrisy, in regard to Time-Warner's making money from Ice ("Cop Killer") T's pro-violence rap at the same time as Time-Warner sanctimoniously wrings its corporate hands over violent crime and propagandizes against the gun rights of honest people. Jim Fotis was on the Larry King show. ======= ======= The Letter ==== ======= ======= ======= /* [begin quoted letter - any typos are mine - important addresses have been reformatted by me to make them more prominent] */ December 23, 1993 [Address, Salutations deleted] I would like to bring to your attention an article in a recent edition of _The Washington Post_. On December 13, 1993, columnist Steve Twomey wrote the enclosed article entitled "Gunfire and Brimstone." In the article, he calls for the help of gun owners - asking law-abiding, gun-owning citizens to write or call him with situations where they successfully deterred or stopped a crime. Please read the enclosed column, and if you have a story to tell, here is your chance. Write to: Steve Twomey c/o The Washington Post 1150 15th Street, NW Washington, DC 20071 or call Mr. Twomey and leave a voice mail message at (202) 334-6387. If you are in law enforcement and know of incidents where a citizen used a gun, or you used one off-duty, to prevent/stop a crime, please also let Mr. Twomey know. Identify yourself as a law enforcement officer, and give your department and rank. This will help build credibility and destroy the myth that all law enforcement officers are in favor of stricter gun control. Please pass this information along to any friends or relatives who may have a story to tell as well. This is a tremendous opportunity to have the positive side of lawful gun ownership aired in a traditionally anti-gun newspaper that's read by national policy makers. I would also like to ask that you send LEAA a copy of any stories which are sent to Mr. Twomey for our media file, or if you leave a voice mail message, please call and tell us. If he kills the story, we want to know. Thank you in advance for helping us take advantage of this golden opportunity to show Washington that not all guns are linked to this country's rising crime rate. That guns - in the right hands - can be an effective and powerful deterrent to crime. Sincerely, [signature] Jim Fotis Executive Director JF/al Enclosure P.S. If you have a story to tell please write or call now - time is of the essence. We want Mr. Twomey to be able to hear from you before he writes his nexy article on guns. /* [end quoted letter] */ The article, "Gunfire and Brimstone", is too long for me to type in - and besides, I don't have the permission. It basically takes off from a recent news story in which a priest in Annandale (a Virginia suburb of Washington, DC) used a pistol to drive off a burglar who was attempting a pre-dawn break- in at the rectory of a Catholic church. I believe I may quote this small portion, which may be useful enough here: Okay, so you don't trust me. But I'm absolutely serious. If guns are the answer, let's hear the answers. The deterrent can be a handgun, a rifle, or a shotgun, and it doesn't have to have been fired in the incident. It merely has to have had a role. I ask only that the event really happened. The best cases would be those reported afterward to the police, so I can verify them. Please provide as many details as possible ... [gives the addresses and phone numbers already given above]. Come on, gun owners, this is your chance. I'll share the best stories. But the winner will have to go a long way to beat the priest with the 9mm. ======= ======= LEAA Information ======= ======= ======= LEAA - Law Enforcement Alliance Of America, Inc. LEAA 7700 Leesburg Pike, Suite 421 Falls Church, VA 22043 (703) 847-COPS or (800) 766-8578 2677 LEAA is also on "Safety Net" LEAA is on Compuserve: 73323,1715 And (maybe they can only receive, not send) on Internet: [73323 1715] at [compuserve.com] Membership: $10/year - Sworn officers with power of arrest, or retired from same ($100 Life Membership) $10/year - Associate membership, all non-sworn officers. ($100 Life) $15/year - Private Professional (e.g., Private Investigators.) ($150 Life) $15/year - Civilian law-enforcement (e.g., Security guards) ($150 Life) $20/year - Civilian non-law-enforcement ($200 Life)