Peter W. Wickham, Jr. writes: "Greetings Mr. Gregory: After this most recent mass shooting, I am hearing again the common calls that all firearms should be banned from private ownership and only law enforcement officials and soldiers should be allowed to have them. Even cops and soldiers can go off the deep end sometimes so it is probably best to disarm them too or since that's not practical, let's just go with what they wrote in the Bill of Rights.

"As a former Texas Peace Officer, I am terribly appalled at the behavior that now passes for "good" police work. I once was called to a disturbance at one of our local bars. On scene was an individual who had broken the law and deserved to be arrested for his crime but he was being detained by an off-duty officer from my department who had been drinking at this bar and as far as I was concerned was causing most of the commotion. At one point this officer began to handle the suspect more roughly than what was necessary and I stepped in to take the suspect while butting the other officer with my hip which helped him find a nice place on the ground from which to observe the rest of that night's activities. Needless to say this officer was terribly upset with me since his drinking buddies had been watching the whole thing and told me he would take up the matter with the Chief.

"I talked to the Chief about the problem I had had with this officer and suggested that our department no longer retain the services of this creep but the Chief just chuckled and said he would look into the matter and as usual nothing happened. This officer went to work for other departments which didn't care much about his "powerful" friends and they didn't put up with his form of "good" police work. He's no longer employed as a Police Officer but he certainly hasn't forgiven me for putting him on his butt. To this day in my retirement I wish I had arrested him along with other fellow that night and just let the chips fall where they may..."