Gun Seizures in Chicago

According to your editorial, Chicago’s public housing is home to 50,000 to 75,000 people who are there illegally. Of them, between 40,000 and 60,000 are responsible for 80% of the crime. Yet authorities have ejected only hundreds of these illegal residents, but have seized more than 1,000 weapons.

It seems the Chicago public housing authorities would have a much greater impact on controlling their problem by concentrating their efforts on evicting unauthorized residents. Instead, they confiscate weapons in such numbers that it suggests many are owned legally by authorized residents who know through sad experience that the system cannot protect them in their own homes.

Is the NRA’s argument “depraved,” a word carefully chosen to show your lack of bias, no doubt? Is the NRA arguing that public housing residents have a constitutional right to kill each other? The answer to both questions is a resounding no!

The NRA is arguing that all law-abiding citizens have a constitutional right to defend themselves in their own homes, even if they happen to be African-Americans living in public housing. Perhaps especially because they are living in public housing.

DAVID C. BRITTON

Anaheim