To the editor,

The July 6 H-T editorial about my carry campaign (discussed in my July 5 column) completely missed the point. It stated that my goal was to shock people, when the goal is the opposite. I want people to abandon their prejudices and begin to accept the idea that good people need not be defenseless people.

Six months ago, I could have immediately begun carrying my Glock (my preferred self-defense gun) openly. As I explained in my column, I began with the smaller gun/holster both to avoid an initial shock effect and in order to gauge people's level of sensitivity to openly carried firearms.

If it transpires that choice of gun makes no difference and people continue to accept me without reacting, then that is a positive outcome and "my work here is done", so to speak. I explain what I am trying to accomplish on www.paulhager.org, particularly in articles #5 and #6a. I reiterate my invitation for readers to visit the site.

I feel moved to qualify an accurate but misleading statement the editorial made about Glocks. Glocks do fire every time a person pulls the trigger but this is true of virtually all handguns going back to Samuel Colt's 1836 revolver! Nor are Glocks especially lethal. That honor probably goes to a Civil War-era cavalry revolver that fired shotgun loads. Glocks are favored by both law-abiding civilians and police because they are reliable and accurate. That's why my wife carries a 9mm Glock. Concealed.


[ADDENDUM: Upon reflection, I suppose my reference in the above letter to Colt's 1836 revolver firing every time the trigger is pulled is not quite correct since the Colt was single action, and required that the hammer be cocked before each firing. However, I have seen some amazing exhibitions of rapid fire with single action revolvers, including one by a fellow on the series American Shooter that appears on TNN. This guy was able to fire a single action much faster than any semi-auto since the latter requires that the trigger be released before it can fire again. The trigger on the single action was held down and the hammer was worked to achieve a machinegun-like effect!]