Bates on Random Searches for Guns

* As a moderate Republican, I was delighted to read the column by Karen Grigsby Bates (“A Little Inconvenience to Save Lives,” Commentary, April 6). The random searches she describes to rid the state of guns would be an excellent way to attack crime in this state. Although such a search would probably be tempered by constitutional issues (i.e., the Second Amendment), a more realistic approach to remove all assault weapons and illegally owned handguns would not be a radical or fascist approach at all. Sacramento is already drafting legislation on assault weapons and handgun licensing that could support such searches.

As Californians, we must all face the reality that the inconveniences of such searches would easily be offset by the increase in business, property values and tourism that would result. As a physician, I fully support an attempt to root out the weapons of crime before they occur in the same way I give antibiotics to my patients to prevent their infections from overwhelming them. In California, crime is truly an infection that is spreading rampantly.

The local police, supported by the manpower of the National Guard, would attack illegal weapons caches in an organized and thorough manner that would make California a model in the war on crime. Bates clearly presents an idea whose time has come: that crime must be fought by all of us together, conservative and liberal, Democrat and Republican, and black and white.

KENNETH S. ALPERN

Long Beach

* I do not regard armed troops patrolling our streets, stopping people at random and searching them for weapons as “a little inconvenient.” Bates may regard the Constitution as a little inconvenient when advocating her police state, but that’s a small price to pay, she thinks, for the freedom to walk the streets at night. Perhaps a less drastic solution would be to legalize drugs and make the corner drug dealer as hard to find as a bootlegger. Once we start trashing the Constitution, Bates may well find it’s “a little inconvenient” to be a liberal woman of color.

DAVID DEMPSTER

West Los Angeles

* I would like to congratulate The Times for your courage in allowing Bates to demonstrate the true liberal agenda; but, why stop there? Sending the National Guard into the streets to remove firearms from the hands of the citizenry by force is only the beginning. Let’s then suspend the Fourth Amendment, which protects us against illegal searches, the Fifth Amendment, which assures us due process, the Sixth Amendment, which assures us a speedy trial, the Seventh Amendment, which assures us a jury trial, and the Eighth Amendment, which protects us against excessive bail and cruel and unusual punishment. But, if Bates doesn’t agree with this tack, then let’s suspend the First Amendment so we don’t have to listen to her griping about her loss of rights.

RICHARD McWOLD

Santa Ana