Brady Gun Bill Passes in House

Nixon is wrong, Ford is wrong, Carter is wrong, Reagan is wrong and you are wrong (“Huge Symbolic Vote on Gun Control,” editorial, May 9). What do four former Presidents and The Times have in common? All proclaim the Brady bill to be sensible, necessary and benign; all decline to produce evidence in support of that claim. I repeat my often-made challenge: Cite one example of a democratic society or community that has passed a gun-control law then seen a measurable decline in the rate of violent crime over a statistically significant period which is not part of a larger pattern. Gun laws succeed at making gun owners outlaws; they fail at keeping outlaws away from guns. But then, isn’t the former the true object after all? Isn’t the Brady bill just one step toward that end? Isn’t that exactly the point of Conrad’s May 9 cartoon?

CHARLES WILSON HEWGILL

Anaheim