Photographs Bother Advocates <i> and</i> Foes of Firearms

Your article on the Lytle Creek Canyon shooting area (“Home on the Range,” Feb. 5) showed children pointing guns at the camera and an unidentified person. This violates the most basic rule of gun safety: Never point a gun at something you do not intend to shoot.

Then, you have a man holding a handgun behind his back with his finger on the trigger. This again violates one of the basic rules of gun safety: Keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to shoot.

In publishing these pictures, you seem to condone unsafe behavior with children and firearms.

KEVIN KNOEDLER, Agoura Hills

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Congrats on your plug for gun control. A little girl happily collects pretty pieces of shrapnel as a man in leather stands over her holding a gun with his finger on the trigger. Four boys old enough to kill point guns at us in front of a car with a naked female on the grill and a beer can on the hood.

Could a gun owner see this differently? Safe families doing their target practice in a controlled atmosphere? Guns and bullets as toys that just incidentally kill people? Interpretation is all in the eye of the beholder.

MELANIE CHARTOFF, JAMES BROOKE, Los Angeles

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Photographer Paul Morse is to be congratulated on such an evocative photo of the young boys shooting in Lytle Creek Canyon. Thank you for publishing it.

I am a school nurse in Pomona. I love the kids in our city. Looking down the gun barrels and into the smiling faces of kids like the same sweet kids I work with every day was a shock. This picture is an eloquent commentary on the tragedy of children and guns in our society.

SHARON PROTOPAPADAKIS, Claremont

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The fact that Paul Morse and the person in the foreground were willing to stand in the way of a bunch of juveniles pointing guns at them doesn’t speak well for their common sense. The fact that the kids and their parents were willing to do it or allow it suggests lack of training and an improper attitude toward firearms safety.

The picture gave lots of readers an opportunity to see what you shouldn’t do with firearms, and will certainly fuel the gun control frenzy, but it completely failed to address one of the most fundamental problems with armed citizens: lack of common sense safety standards, and nonchalant attitudes about guns that result in thousands of needless deaths and injuries every year.

JOHN W. HAZLET JR., Pasadena

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In “Home on the Range,” you portray gun owners in the worst possible light.

Is it a coincidence that you chose the naked woman silhouette and beer can on the automobile as a background? Furthermore, you pose an individual with a pistol behind his back, with his finger on the trigger. Not to mention a young boy holding his ears from a lack of ear protection.

I resent this portrayal. Where are the articles about responsible gun owners?

SCOTT A. WEBER, Laguna Hills

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The Times’ opposition to the constitutionally guaranteed right to possess firearms is well known, and as a gun owner and member of the National Rifle Assn., I am constantly amazed and infuriated by your evident ignorance on the subject.

Have you lost your minds? Did you think it was “cute” to show children aiming lethal weapons at the reader?

With rare exception, you will never see a reputable gun enthusiast magazine publish a photograph that has the reader staring into the business end of a firearm, and you certainly will never see a photograph in which the weapon is being held by a child.

MICHAEL C. WESTLUND, Garden Grove

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The photograph of recreational shooters at Lytle Creek made me gasp out loud.

I am an avid target shooter and frequent patron of the local gun club’s range. My earliest memories of safe gun-handling are the rules my dad constantly drilled into my head: Treat every firearm as if it’s loaded, and never, never point a gun at another person.

I hope the establishment of a controlled range (at Lytle Creek) will elevate the standards of safety indispensable to enjoyable target shooting.

KIM TAYLOR, Apple Valley

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I was outraged to see, in living color, four boys of unknown ages pointing guns at me, and, obviously, at the photographer and another person in the left foreground.

Don’t we have enough guns in the hands of children now? Why would you dignify a picture like that? Children have very active minds and from this picture, they could conceivably assume it is OK to point a gun at someone.

PHYLLIS HALEY, Palm Desert

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The pictures of children pointing their guns at the photographer, the boy covering his ears in pain, the man hiding his pistol behind his back with his finger on the trigger are all meant to put forth the Times’ editorial policy of portraying citizens who own firearms as irresponsible and dangerous.

The vast majority of recreational shooters would never engage in such behavior.

P.S. There is no such thing as a .22 gauge as referred to in the article.

DON HEADLAND JR., Morro Bay

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As a society, we wonder why there is so much gang activity and school violence. Your photos show us why.

I only wish every National Rifle Assn. official has the opportunity to view these pictures and ask themselves if they are doing all they can to educate their gun-owning members on safety, family values and environmental respect.

Wake up, gun owners: You are the problem and the solution.

WILLIAM J. KESTER, Brea