Terror Bombing and Assault Guns

Re “Oklahoma Fallout: Assault Gun Ban,” editorial, April 25:

The federal building in Oklahoma City was not attacked by 5,000 camouflaged extremists armed with $150-apiece assault weapons, but rather, from the evidence thus far made public, at most only a handful of extremists armed with a single 5,000-pound “truck bomb” composed of $150-per-ton ammonium nitrate fertilizer mixed with fuel oil. Similarly, the World Trade Center building in New York was not attacked by hordes of terrorists firing M-16s or AK-47s, but rather, a well-placed powerful car bomb--the apparent weapon of choice for these kinds of assaults.

The Times has a long and well-documented history of pressing its political agenda to eliminate so-called assault weapons, and pushing for other gun control measures. But in seeking to link the Oklahoma bombing to guns, as you have done in your editorial, The Times is itself now also attempting to “extract partisan advantage from spilled blood” (George Will, Column Right, April 25). Finding innovative new methods of controlling terrorist attacks by bombing, a considerable more lethal threat to our society, might be a more productive use of your efforts and creative energies.

DONALD M. FENMORE

Los Angeles

Let me see if I understand your editorial non-logic. Some demented idiot blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City with two tons of fertilizer and common chemicals. Therefore we should ban guns. It would make more sense to ban fertilizer, starting with the fertilizer in your editorial.

CLIFFORD A. SCHAFFER

Canyon Country

I was shocked the night of April 19 when I saw the news reports. I have cried almost every night since, watching the tragic and useless losses to the families of Oklahoma City. But I still must disagree with your editorial. While it is true that these paramilitary extremists champion the Second Amendment, it is one of the few rights or laws of the United States they honor. Groups that support this kind of terrorism and anarchism are paranoid, uneducated, lunatic idiots. But it wasn’t a firearm that made them that way!

I do agree with your call for more vigilant efforts to prevent this violence. But I just wish your call for restraint in dealing with terrorism to avoid “running roughshod over the rights of law-abiding citizens” (editorial, April 26) would apply to the entire Bill of Rights.

MICHAEL E. SMITH

Placentia

For some years, I have watched the National Rifle Assn. and its followers claim that guns don’t kill, people do. We are dealing with the only product currently legal to manufacture that is made with only one purpose--to kill. I cannot comprehend why it is so critically important to these opponents of gun laws to stop regulation of these killing products. Many of them seem to think that these laws abridge their “rights” to own a product made only to kill and others claim that it will prohibit their rights to participate in target practice.

One wonders how these people would react to laws prohibiting possession of any handgun other than those which would accept soft rubber or soft plastic ammunition only. If, indeed, target practice is their true agenda, then laws of this type should certainly be a logical compromise. On the other hand, those who would still object would surely deserve the labels of “gun nuts” or “gun fanatics.”

ARTHUR J. ECK

Palm Desert