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Responses to "Gun control issue needs addressing"
To the editor: To the editor: I read with much amusement, the article about gun control by William Welliver. By his logic, I have now changed my stance about knives. There have been four incidents involving knives in my neighborhood within the last month. One person cut himself or herself attempting suicide but was stopped when shot by a police officer. Another person was rushed to the ER when attacked with a knife during a drug deal gone badly and the last two were seriously wounded when mugged in downtown Minneapolis. These rash acts with a knife clearly indicate we need knife control. Ok, now that you are laughing like I hoped you would, the premise in Mr. Welliver's article is the same bull. But when you are a liberal bed-wetter like Mr. Welliver appears, I guess logic and facts mean nothing as long as you can express your feelings. Chris Clarke Minneapolis, Minn. Back to top To the editor: Although I understand your frustration at your local gun crimes, most people who own firearms are law abiding and would never use a firearm unlawfully. Research has proven that states where citizens are allowed carry concealed firearms, the crime rate goes down greater than in states that don't. There is a real deterrent factor. The jurisdictions that ban firearms have the highest crime rates in the country (also in the world). Washington D.C. and Chicago have some of the most restrictive gun laws and they are the murder capitals of the USA. Gun control only disarms the law abiding. The criminals greet gun control with glee because that means their victim pool is defenseless. Women and the fragile elderly are targeted victims because they cannot defend themselves against a strong, young assailant. As a health educator with a PhD, I strongly support the ability of potential victims to prevent crimes against themselves. In some countries where guns were banned, violent crime has exploded (England, Australia etc.). In many countries, disarming citizens resulted in genocide: Nazi Germany, USSR, Ottoman Turkey, China, Uganda, Cambodia and Rwanda among many others. The government has murdered four times as many civilians as were killed in all the international and domestic wars combined, and millions more than were killed by common criminals. Some references include Dr. John Lott's "More Guns Less Crime" (he includes his raw data from his research so others can verify his results), and "The Media Bias Against Guns." Also jpfo.org has many articles on the devastating results of gun control. Dr. Donna Ellison Roseburg, Ore. Back to top To the editor: I saw your editorial on gun control being an important issue again. Before we make any more gun laws, we should try enforcing those that we already have. As you say, guns find their way into the hands of the wrong people. Those wrong people commit crimes with those guns. There isn't a good answer to this problem. The best answer that I know of is to start enforcing the laws that are already on the books. That may not have prevented the two incidents that your refer to, but there are other incidents in which laws regarding the transfer or sale of handguns that have been broken, allowing events to unfold. The guns are already out there. We cannot make them go away. Watch what happens in San Francisco (if the gun ban isn't overturned). Look at what happened in D.C. and Chicago. Gun bans in other countries haven't reduced crime. I don't believe they would here either. As I've said, I don't have an answer to this problem. I don't believe there is an easy answer. Robert Haig Austin, Texas Back to top To the editor: In the last week, according to your editorial, you have changed your mind about guns and gun control, to wit: you have moved from blaming the people who use guns to commit crimes to blaming the situation on "too many guns." This is tantamount to blaming auto accidents on "too many cars." I grant that if cars did not exist, there would not be any accidents involving them; but imagine, if you can, the situation 150 years ago, before automobiles. Although we do not read about it in history books, many people died by falling from a horse, or in accidents involving horse-drawn buggies, wagons, stagecoaches, etc. If you lived then, would you advocate getting rid of horses because of the accidents? If you want to see the results of a "gunless" society, look at England, Scotland, Ireland, Australia or Canada (to some degree). In Scotland, you are three times as likely to be assaulted as a US resident. England has twice the rate of assaults. The crime rate in these countries has skyrocketed since the government seized the guns of the populace. The reason for this is simple: Pass a law against guns, only the law abiding will give up their guns. The criminal, since he ignores laws anyway, will never voluntarily give up his guns. Thus, the only people with guns are the police and the criminals. Makes it a little bit easier on the police, since if you have a gun, you are automatically a criminal. But the police cannot and will not protect you all the time. Actually, the most rabid of gun control advocates is the criminal, since this guarantees him an unarmed victim. Put yourself in the position of the victims in your hometown for a moment. Which would you rather, faced with a criminal with a gun: Call 911, or have a gun yourself, know how to use it and be prepared to use it? We know how it often turns out when the victim is not armed - we hear about it on the news all the time. But you almost never hear about how a gun saved someone's life. For that, we can blame the liberal media. Studies indicate that possession of a gun either stops a crime, or keeps the victim from death or injury some two million times a year. With so many examples to choose from, why doesn't every news program have an example or two where the outcome was positive? If you choose to become part of the media (you now are as a student, due to your editorial position) perhaps you could investigate why this situation exists. One final thought: If you were a criminal, and you were in a state where, say 35-percent of the adult populace regularly carried a gun, was trained in its use, and was prepared to use it, what would you do? Obviously, you would move to California, where you have a much better chance of living longer, where victims cannot strike back. But what if just 25-percent of the adult populace in the United States fit the above criteria, what do you think would happen to the criminals? Well, I know what would happen. To answer that question, study Switzerland, where every able-bodied man up to the age of 55 is part of their military, and has a fully automatic assault rifle in his closet at home. Very little crime, and the people are courteous and friendly. James R. Johnson Kerrville, Texas Back to top To the editor: Your dedication to the Bill of Rights, in general, and the 2nd Amendment, in particular is touching, however mendacious it may be. Please note: "After every high profile shooting, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn't do it." - William Burroughs (1992) "Quemadmoeum gladis nemeinum occidit, occidentis telum est." (A sword is never a killer, it's a tool in the killer's hands - Lucius Annaeus Seneca "The Younger" (ca 4 BC - 65 AD) "If that six-year-old had brought a baseball bat to school, and in retaliation for being slapped the day before had beaten that little girl to death in front of the rest of the class, it would have been all over the news just as this event has been all over the news. But here is the $64 question: Would anyone be calling for a ban on baseball bats?" - Author unknown but thanked. Lee McGee Jeanerette, La. Back to top To the editor: Mr. Welliver's opinion piece repeats all the fallacies spouted by the gun control organizations, ignoring the simple fact that criminals are not going to obey laws prohibiting firearms (hey that's the very definition of a criminal, right?) and that gun control laws ONLY affect those who obey the law. Surely we can agree that the perpetrators in both the cases discussed showed absolutely no regard for laws on the books. The case involving the double murder is a tragedy, no doubt, but I wonder if Mr. Welliver's perception of guns might be different if one of the victims had employed a firearm to prevent this crime from taking place. The fact is that this happens many times each day across the U.S. and removing the means of self-defense from the hands of law-abiding citizens will surely interfere with their right to life itself in many instances. There is no place in this or any other serious issue for emotionalism, and the facts plainly show that (a) gun control laws DO NOT reduce crime and (b) citizens having and exercising the right to self-defense does reduce it. "The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding." - Justice Louis Brandeis (1928) Gerry Powers Seminary, Miss. Back to top To the editor: The author if this article is obviously not a very well trained journalist. But hey, that seems to be the standard nowadays. The author forgot to look at the other side of the coin. Why do we have guns? The historical perspective is a simple one. When a government does not trust its population, it attempts to disarm them. In the 20th Century, over 120 million people were killed by their own governments. And all those people lived in countries where the government preferred to have an unarmed population. The Founders of this country knew this truth more than 200 years ago. That Americans today blithely ignore this fact is a reflection of the lousy education that today's children receive. But since the author chose to use criminal behavior to justify his position for banning guns maybe he should have asked a few far simpler questions. 1) How many people successfully defend themselves from criminal attacks using guns? The answer can be found within two sets of data. The Department of Justice, in its annual crime report documents about 80,000 to 100,000 DGUs (Defensive Gun Uses) against criminal attacks. These DGUs are ONLY based on those recorded in police reports. But many such DGUs remain unreported. So Gary Kleck, in a survey to discover what the real number of annual DGUs can be, found that the number was closer to 2,500,000 per year. These numbers are far greater than the actual incidents of criminals using guns to commit crimes. 2) What provides a better chance of surviving a criminal attack, being defenseless or being able to repel the attack? Again, the Department of Justice in its study of crime provides the answer. The BEST way to survive a criminal attack with your life or even uninjured is with a gun. Any other means of self-defense is not even comparably close in terms of avoiding death or injury. And cooperating with the criminal is by far the worst approach possible if you want to survive unharmed. Maybe the editorial board needs to increase its standard so that its editors distinguish between ignorant opinion pieces and editorial comments that are based on facts. Peter S. Saly Minneapolis, Minn. Back to top To the editor: With reference to the above, by William Welliver, Co-News Editor, I'd like to take exception to his comments regarding firearms. Mr. Welliver commented "I used to blame gun crimes on the people that committed them. However, after these two incidents that hit extremely close to home, I have changed my tune." In both of the incidents he writes about, automotive contrivances were involved. Not a word about outlawing those. What if there had been no automobiles? It's likely that neither of the incidents would have happened. What if Mr. Ludwig resorted to using some other tool instead of a firearm? What if he'd stabbed both parents to death, or employed an axe? What then would be Mr. Welliver's thoughts? It is not logical to blame an inanimate object for its misuse by someone. And, it isn't even mentioned by Mr. Welliver that crime committed with firearms in the US is very much less than crime committed with many other tools. So, why the hyperbole? If you want to start outlawing things involved in crime, start with those things that are much more employed. I consider that you'll find that firearms are way down on the list of things to ban. Edward J. Totty Everett, Wash. Back to top Tell a friend about this article |
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