Anti gun left threatens gun store owner

Houston Chronicle:

A Harris County gun shop owner received a letter Saturday threatening him, his family and his employees.

"Live by the gun. Die by the gun. You will not live to see Easter," reads the typed letter that was mailed Thursday in Houston and arrived Saturday at Jim Pruett's Guns & Ammo.

Jim Pruett was photographed and quoted in the Houston Chronicle last week saying that restricting sales of military-style arms wouldn't prevent tragedies like the Connecticut massacre. "All it's going to do is make it difficult for law-abiding citizens to get the best protection they can for their home against, especially in Texas, gangs motivated by the drug cartel," Pruett said in the Wednesday article.

He said Saturday they were taking the threat from the threat signed by a "Newtown-inspired marksman" seriously.

"Are we afraid? No, but we're cautious," he said.

A sheriff's deputy picked up the letter Saturday afternoon and told Pruett it would probably be turned over to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The deputy also urged him to take the threat seriously, Pruett said.

"All of our staff makes an extra effort now to look at everyone who comes in," Pruett said. "We do that anyway, but now even more so."

If someone looks unusual or behaves oddly, the store doesn't sell that person a gun, even if they pass the background check.

... 

Well, that is one way to register a complaint about gun violence.  Threaten someone who had nothing to do with the crime.  We are starting to see a new kind of crazy since the Connecticut shootings.  Some in the media are acting like a lynch mob chasing Frankenstein.  Now some people are making anonymous threats.

Most of this hysteria has been created by the national media.  Some remind me of mad dogs barking insults against those whose point of view they disagree with.  I am not a member of the NRA but my place is also not a gun free zone.  But seeing the allegations of "blood on the hands" of the NRA and the gun manufacturer it is not too soon to say that the gun control hysteria is going too far and will create a backlash.  Already the reaction to the reaction has been to buy more guns.  People on both sides need to get a grip.  I think the ones who show calm reflection while still expressing sympathy for the victims are going to come out on top.

The Alinsky like attempt to take advantage of a tragedy should not be the basis for action.