Using Guns for Protection

Jeri Weinstein (“Empower the Police to Take Back the Streets,” Jan. 28) states with some authority some conclusions that I have had, but which had previously only been based on assumptions.

I have had, unfortunately, direct experience in one area that has a bearing on the use of guns for protection. Those who have not experienced it do not seem to ever quite understand that, in any confrontation between a person who has some education, who assumes responsibilities, who has friends and family, and a person who has no self-esteem and who has self-destructive tendencies, there is no gain for the responsible person. It’s not 50-50, one against the other; it’s a zero person attacking a responsible person.

If the responsible person “wins” and kills or maims his alleged attacker, he will live with the recollection of his action the remainder of his life and will possibly be subject to criminal charges as the result of taking the law into his own hands. On the other hand, getting killed or maimed and losing the ability of provide for a family is just plain foolhardy. A local policeman, in lecturing to a group of us, emphasized that if a person has a gun for protection, he or she must be willing to use it, and must also be willing to assume the mental, emotional and legal results of that use.

BRUCE GALT

North Hollywood