Controversy Over Gun Research

When it comes to firearms, your ignorance is exceeded only by your obstinacy. “Blind Eye to Gun Injuries” (editorial, Nov. 7) lauds the politically motivated, pseudoscientific “research” on firearm injuries that is promoted by the National Center for Injury Prevention of the federally funded Centers for Disease Control.

The 10 senators who are spearheading the drive to cut the CDC’s funding have the support of many scientists, including me.

I request that you stop using the fabricated number of “38,000 [annual fatal injuries] involving guns.” Of those, 19,500 are suicides that would occur regardless of the availability of firearms. About 1,500 are accidental deaths. Another 3,000 are justifiable homicides by citizens or police against felons. That leaves about 14,000 criminal homicides, still an unacceptable number, but a fraction of your inflated total.

Fellow readers, consider that more than 3 million Americans were injured and 45,000 died last year from motor vehicle trauma. Think about how often you see ordinary people speeding, weaving in and out of traffic lanes, or running stop signs. You may begin to understand just how misguided is The Times’ quixotic campaign to disarm honest citizens while preserving free access to 4,000-pound killing machines.

JOHN C. COLLINS

Long Beach

* That giant sucking sound heard throughout the land is simply that of the groveling Senatorial 10 (Bob Dole included) selling their loathsome, vote-pandering political access to the NRA.

Obviously not yet sated by our thousands of annual gun victims, those gun lobbyists detect a nefarious scheme behind an effort that might prevent or reduce injuries from the lethal product they so ardently promote, and are objecting to the gun injury prevention research done by the National Center for Injury Prevention. Naturally the gutless, conscienceless politicians goose-step in support of this new NRA venality.

Perhaps someday, somehow, miraculously, there will simultaneously exist sufficient congresspersons possessed of enough disgust and horror over our relentless gun carnage to show courage and conviction, forgo self-interest, tell the NRA and gun profiteers to go to hell and then implement encompassing and effective gun control. Dream on.

ILENE BRISKIN

Beverly Hills

* I am a government teacher at Grant High School in Van Nuys.

My students worked in groups recently. The assignment: If they were only allowed to keep five rights listed in the Bill of Rights, which five would they choose?

Not one of the 15 groups chose the right to bear arms. When I asked each class why, their answer was simply, “There’s just too much violence.”

Hope lives!

BARBARA HALPERN

Van Nuys