Handgun Standards

The Jan. 24 letters using sarcasm to ridicule Sen. Barbara Boxer’s efforts to create safety standards for handguns simply miss the target. “Saturday night special” handguns produced domestically are not subject to any quality or safety standards (toy guns are!). Firearms industry experts have conducted tests of these products (published in Gun Test) and found them “unacceptable” and “self-destructing.” The February 1968 American Rifleman publication of the National Rifle Assn. urged the Johnson administration to ban the import of “these miserably made, potentially defective arms that contribute so much to rising violence,” and our Congress accepted this recommendation in 1968 by banning the importation of this type of handgun.

Now we have a thriving domestic industry in Southern California producing “junk” guns. The proposed federal legislation would eliminate a double standard and close this loophole. If it isn’t safe enough to be imported, why do we allow the unregulated domestic manufacture of this type of “junk” handgun?

CHARLES L. BLEK JR.

Laguna Hills