BB-Gun Ban Intrudes on Rights
Regarding the Laguna Niguel BB-gun ban (“Council Restores Ban on Firing BB Guns,” July 23): (Chief of Police Services) Joe Davis has a strange concept of community-based policing. It goes something like this:
Find a traditional family activity the community likes to do. Make the activity illegal. Then police the community.
I got a dozen calls from concerned parents. They were worried that they would no longer be able to teach their kids how to use a BB gun as their fathers had done for them. Well, they were right to be worried.
Now if fathers teach their sons and daughters how to be a safe BB-gun shooter, they are teaching civil disobedience. The city has abridged our property rights and Second Amendment rights.
A child who is taught how to be safe and effective with the tools of self-defense grows up to be an entirely different citizen than a child who must rely on the state for protection. The former is fiercely independent in nature. The latter fiercely dependent on police and government safety measures.
What kind of citizens are we raising in Laguna Niguel? Are we home of the free, or land of the sheep?
ROBERT W. BURKE, Laguna Niguel
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