Thank you, Dr. Webster

Last week, in the midst of all the coverage from the Sandy Hook shooting, I heard a radio interview with Daniel W. Webster who was talking about responsible gun control. 

I looked him up when I got home, and found that he is the Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School for Public Health.

After doing just a tad more digging I found a list of PDFs listing some publications on gun control.  You can read them here, if you'd like.

I've read a couple of the articles, and plan on reading the rest soon. They're well written and informative.

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Recently I was looking on Amazon, and through the Barnes and Noble in town trying to find good books on the subject of guns with regards to the relationship between guns and violence, as well as on policy analysis. I found almost nothing on the shelves of Barnes and Noble in the store, and Amazon led me to a sea of books ranging from all perspectives on the issues. I was lost. I had no idea which reviews to trust, or which books were of any value. 

So, I sent an email to Dr. Webster at 12:15AM last week. I even included a sentence that said, "I know it's the end of the year and we are all busy, so if my email goes unanswered, I will survive."And the man responded fifteen minutes later. He gave me two more articles to read, as well as recommended the book by economist and public health professor David Hemenway, "Private Guns: Public Health."

I have yet to read it, but would like to thank Dr. Webster for his speedy and thoughtful response to my inquiry. I was impressed, and surprised that I received an email back from him so quickly. After I'm done reading these articles and the book by Hemenway, I also plan on reading "More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws" by John Lott. From what I've read so far, this is one of the strongest arguments made on why we need more guns in our society. I figure, if I'm going to read so much on how and why we need more responsible gun legislation, I should at least also read the argument against it.

It's good for balance.