Handguns and the Murder of Scotty Sachs

I am grateful to you for the article by Kathleen Kelleher on the murder of Scotty Sachs (Times, June 18). I’ve known him since he opened his gas station a year ago and I went solely to him, as he was the only local guy selling ethanol-laced gasoline. He was always friendly and helpful and had repaired my VW bug several times.

The article leads me, yet again, to the sickening realization that unrestricted handguns are doing incredible damage to the American scene, and no amount of rationalizing by the National Rifle Assn. can make his death any easier. This noise that any person should have unlimited access to whatever gun they want, with as much ammunition as they choose (don’t forget how the NRA fought against limiting cop-killing dumdum bullets), is dispatching too many of our friends. How many more Scottys must die? How many Kennedys or Kings or 4-year-old children must perish before we wake up from our Wild West fortress fantasies and realize we are dying needlessly out here for someone’s ideological fervor?

I’m angry that Scotty was murdered--we don’t know by whom or exactly for what--but it was senseless. He was a nice guy who couldn’t do any harm to anybody. He was a wonderful fixture on Melrose, and I’m going to miss him greatly.

DALE REYNOLDS

Los Angeles