got an article published in the school paper, but they edited it, and it totally changed the context of the paragraph. I feel like an idiot! I sighted the effects of legislation passed in 1934 and in 1986 but they took a sentience out and grouped the effects to the first piece of legislation. it dosen't make sense any more. And this is the last paper of the year, so it's not like they can print corrections in a month.

I'd like to read em'...both versions.  

That is the way it goes sometimes. Time to infultrate. Get on the school paper staff, and push your own stuff through.

It will be the way to go. There is no one to edit stuff out whn you are calling all the shots.

this is the school version

http://groups.msn.com/larsstuff/personal.msnw?action=ShowPhoto&PhotoID=494

Most of the guns used to commit crimes are small, cheap, black market, handguns. So why are most gun laws restrictive of BIG, expensive, legally owned rifles? Isn't that like trying to prevent illegitimate children from being born by making it illegal for married couples to copulate? It’s the same as trying to prevent lead poisoning by banning the use of acrylic paint. It’s as dumb as buying a crate of dust masks in a futile effort to protect yourself from SARS, when you could have gone to the doctor to get inoculated from the flu, which is hundreds of times more likely to kill you.
There once was a time when any one could legally own any gun they wanted, But then in 1934 they passed a whole bunch of gun control laws. From then on legal machine guns where so tightly regulated that not a single one was ever used to commit a crime, but that wasn't enough! Then in 1986 they banned civilians from owning any automatic weapon made after that date, machine guns became so expensive no one rich enough to afford one would ever use it to commit a crime (most automatic rifles currently cost between $6,000 and $10,000, belt feed machine guns cost between $20,000 and $55,000), but that wasn't enough! After all, just a few years AFTER the ban a police officer used a registered automatic pistol to kill an informant. Then in 1994 they passed a law to ban guns that LOOK like machine guns, they called it the assault weapons ban so any one who apposed it would sound like an extremist to the layperson. While the gun control advocates where out grabbing nasty looking guns from those crazy rednecks, the vast majority of murders where being committed by pistols, many of which are illegally acquired. Either bought off the streets or stolen.  
Why all this redundancy to protect you from types of firearms that are almost never used to commit crime? It’s about politics. They convince you that the loud, scary things you’ve only ever seen in movies ARE real and WILL hurt you UNLESS you vote them into office. They scare you into voting them into office and they pass some laws. They take away guns with menacing nicknames like “assault weapon” “hand cannon” or “street sweeper” or “sniper rifle”. You feel safer as you watch those crazy gun nuts asking for their rifles back, and the murder rate is largely unaffected because the thugs still have the “nines” and “forty fives” they bought from the trunk of a car.

Not too bad. Keep it up and some people will actually begin to listen.

Thanks for helping the cause.

good points but just a tip for ya if you are ever righting a formal paper or letter try not to use words such as  Dumb, or instead of using "they" use the government. and intead of using It's use it is.
I am not a good writer just some tips people have shown me.

takes balls to stand up to the liberals believe me I rememer how annoying it was to be in school with those idiots.

Thanks for posting the stories, and thanks for getting out there and making yourself heard.  I don't think the edit was "too" terrible, the gist still came across pretty well.  At least they left most of it intact.  I wrote a letter to the editor once and only got one line published.

But I tend to ramble...Good Luck in your future endeavors!

Good paper, it is a start. I've had a few letters to the editor in a few papers, and they edited the heck out of it to conserve space. Those people don't know anything about guns etc, so they take out important words that changes the character of the piece.