Gun Permits for Sheriff’s Reserves

I disagree with your Sept. 28 editorial’s position that L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca and Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona should be working to contain the number of guns on the streets and shouldn’t have “Baca buddies” playing sheriff.

How many defenseless doctors, lawyers and judges have been gunned down in the past few years? Had these individuals been given the right to arm themselves as law-abiding citizens, they might still be alive today. Average citizens don’t have armed bodyguards, as do corporate and county executives and movie celebrities. There can’t be a police officer on every corner all the time.

The Times has already acted as judge and jury in the case of Scott Zacky and has given him short shrift. The Times wants to throw the baby out with the bathwater, without giving these new deputies a real chance to prove their worth.

MICHAEL L. FRIEDMAN

Torrance

* Regarding “Member of Sheriff’s Celebrity Reserve Unit Suspended,” Sept. 25: As a police reserve officer in Orange County, I saw this headline coming a mile away. Both Baca and Carona have created this highly questionable category of special reserves. As a reserve officer working patrol duties, I find this to be a slap in the face to all of the well-trained, dedicated reserve officers in the state. Handing out badges and guns to people who have only 64 hours of classroom/range training, with no follow-up training in the real world, is ludicrous. Real reserve officers receive over 600 hours of academy training, followed with over 400 hours of field training with a training officer.

There is a big difference between being trained to fire a weapon and knowing when you should even have it out in the first place.

BRENT MOSBROOK

Santa Ana