Senate’s Vote on Gun Control

Your editorial (July 12), “Gun-Ho,” finally pushed me into writing. I don’t know where you got the information that the majority of the country favors strict controls over guns. If this was true, the lopsided vote in the U.S. Senate would have gone the other way.

Why do you believe that the lopsided vote in the Senate shows anything but that enough of the voting population pushed their senators into voting the way they wanted? As one senator once said, “When I feel the heat, I see the light.” You must remember that even the gun lobby who helped push this bill through is mostly financed by the voting public.

The statement you printed by Rep. Peter W. Rodino Jr. (D-N.J.)--”This bill will only make it easier for criminals, drug addicts, felons and the mentally incompetent to get their hands on a gun”--is ludicrous. A criminal, by the very definition, is a person guilty of a crime. They are criminals because then don’t obey the law. How can anyone believe that they are going to obey a new law, any better than those already in effect, or that by changing an unnecessary law for the law-abiding citizen it is going to affect them in any way.

You state in your editorial, “The unrestricted sale of weapons would make the crime rate go up. Criminals would only have to go to another state to buy any weapon that they sought.” This Senate bill makes it no easier for a criminal to purchase a weapon from any state. The bill did not change any of the requirements to purchase any weapon, it only says you can purchase interstate.

ARTHUR SHOR

Santa Monica