Enforcement of Gun Laws
It isn’t often that I am disgusted while reading the paper, but on Oct. 23 I was. On the front page I read that yet another of California’s children--Catherine Tran--was killed by a handgun. I turn the page and find out that the state attorney general presides over an office committed to “siding with a defendant . . . possessing an assault weapon.”
How many more children must die before Dan Lungren starts enforcing our gun control laws? They are entitled to protection even when Lungren is not running for higher office.
PAUL HERZOG
Los Angeles
“In Gun Control Battles, Casualties Can Be Heavy” (Oct. 19) informs us that, in the California state Legislature, “Attempts to restrict automatic weapons . . . fall victim to the give and take of politics.” I tire of hearing the claim that the “assault weapon” debate is about automatic weapons or “‘machine guns.” It isn’t. Such firearms aren’t even on the table for legislative discussion, because they were, for good or ill, outlawed long before the first “assault weapon” ban was passed in 1989.
What, then, is an “assault weapon,” and how does it differ from a “non-assault” weapon? I am still waiting for The Times to provide an accurate answer to this question. Catch phrases are no substitute for clear reporting.
NELSON WILLIAM CLAYTON
Calabasas
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