Re: Jeff Jacoby, -- The desire to believe, like Anne Frank, that "people are truly good at heart" is powerful. -- And then you proceed to forward a few anecdotes of bad people to impeach the idea that PEOPLE are not really good at heart. That is what in argumentation LOGIC we call "Sweeping Generalization". We would not have trade, contracts and civilization if people were not good in general. The fact is that we don't need guns to protect ourselves from bad people - that's a secondary consideration. There ARE bad people out there, to be sure but, generally, most people are GOOD. NO, *WE* need guns to defend ourselves from the DO-GOODERS that populate the State. That was the purpose of the 2nd Amendment.