Opinion: You plus a gun is good first line of defense, says a cop

To the editor: William Alexander’s op-ed article on taking up shooting in retirement and attending the recent National Rifle Assn. convention in Atlanta was typical naive leftism. (“What happened when a 64-year-old liberal attended his first NRA convention,” Opinion May 11)

He spoke with an African American woman whose 14-year-old son was shot three times in his head during what Alexander called a “home intrusion robbery.” The term is “home invasion robbery,” and not once in my more-than-three-decades-long career in law enforcement have I ever heard a home robbery called an “intrusion.”

This woman’s home was invaded by marauders and, yes, had she or her son had a gun he might not have been the subject of the NRA video Alexander so deplored.

I’ve been a cop so long it’s hard to remember when I wasn’t, and I’ve dealt with too many murders to recount. But it has always struck me that in almost every case, every one of the victims, at some point before their death, had a chance to live if they’d had a means of self-defense — perhaps a gun.

Steve Switzer, San Pedro

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