Regulating Bullet Sales
In your editorial, “How Desperation Becomes a Tool” (March 1), you quote Pasadena Police Chief Jerry Oliver as saying, “It is easier to buy 9-millimeter ammunition than it is to buy a can of spray paint.” Well now. For that matter, it is easier to buy a bottle of whiskey than a can of spray paint, since the paint has to be kept in a locked cabinet.
But there is a simple solution, and I am surprised no one has suggested it; ask for identification. You have to show ID to get into a club that serves alcohol if you look underage, you have to show ID to purchase cigarettes if you look under 18, you have to show ID at the supermarket if you wish to buy beer and look underage.
You claim that ammo sales to juveniles are already illegal (true) and widespread (I don’t think so). Do you have any figures to support this? Have you ever been inside a gun store when a juvenile attempted to buy ammunition or a gun? From my experience in working in gun stores, I can assure you that gun shops are very careful with carding underage buyers. (Most of our ammo losses were to shoplifting teen-agers, until we put the most popular stolen caliber’s behind the gun counter.)
ROBERT RUDZKI
Riverside
You praise the Pasadena bullet-control law a model for other communities. Does anyone really believe that gangs capable of importing thousands of tons of cocaine will have any trouble importing ammo?
The only solution to the gang violence problem is to remove the need for violence. Gangs use guns to enforce contracts and sales territories for their drug businesses. Until we do away with drug prohibition, we will have violence in the streets.
I know The Times has its own agenda to disarm citizens, but some realism about the cause of the problem would be appreciated along with the hand-wringing about gun control.
WILLIAM ELSWICK
Santa Monica
Pasadena is on the right track. Guns, after all, don’t kill people; bullets kill people.
BURT PRELUTSKY
North Hills
A supporter of the proposed Pasadena ammunition ordinance is quoted (March 1) as saying “we need to do something.” Well, no we don’t. We don’t need to do things that are illogical, ineffectual and which bear no relation to the problem. Let’s put this in another context. Does anyone think that requiring adults to register their alcoholic beverage purchases (as opposed to being required to show proof of age) would have any effect on the problem of underage drinking?
What we really need to do is turn down the emotional heat on both sides of this issue. What we don’t need is the reflex acceptance or rejection of any proposed method of reducing the incidence of the criminal misuse of firearms.
RICHARD de la SOTA
Redondo Beach
A supporter of Pasadena’s new show-ID-to-buy-bullets ordinance says it is a needed step, but “too little, too late.” Of course! Everything that can still be done to curb the national epidemic of killings by handguns and assault weapons is too little and too late! And much needed.
Speaking of too-late “solutions,” the guns-create-safety folk keep saying all we need to do is, after a crime has been committed, give extra punishment to the perpetrator who used a gun. “Punish the criminals, not the law-abiding.”
That’s not going to prevent even the one gun killing in eight that is connected with a robbery, carjacking, dope deal, or whatever. And now let’s consider the seven out of eight that have nothing to do with any of those crimes--the terrible majority that grow out of “law-abiding” people’s family fights, neighborhood feuds and accidents.
Let’s make some changes, little and late though they may be.
(Sincere Americans can honestly disagree as to exactly what the Second Amendment in our Bill of Rights means. But can’t we agree that it does not mean every resident is entitled to “defend” life and property with the deadly weapon of choice--cannon, machine gun, grenades or assault rifle?)
DON FAWCETT
Los Angeles
Wake up, Pasadena, the new law is a major grab for power by both the police and the City Council. What they intend is simple: If a crime is committed with a handgun, whose caliber you brought bullets for, they can show up at your door, take your gun, treat you like a criminal and confiscate that gun, all under the guise of “making the city safe.” Truth is, the next step is the camps for “reprogramming.”
This is how is started in 1938 in Nazi Germany.
TAENHA GOODRICH-SMITH
Sylmar