Debate Over Guns
Your Sept. 12 editorial (“Communities in the Lead”), which is basically a list of gun laws that would make society safer, would be responded to by the pro-gun lobby saying no matter how many laws there are against guns, criminals, who do not obey the law, will still get guns. And that it is the criminals whom we are trying to keep guns from.
This same pro-gun lobby argues in defense of the 2nd Amendment that we need our guns in case the government ever turns tyrannical. There is one ambiguity in simultaneously holding these two positions: Could not a revolutionary, in time of revolution, get a gun just as easily as a criminal in time of peace?
CRAIG LENNON KYSAR
Sherman Oaks
* May I point something out to the people who analogize guns to cars--namely, the primary purpose of cars is to move people, with the unfortunate incidental effect of occasional injuries. The sole purpose of guns is to kill people. Thanks to L.A. County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky for his courage. I can only imagine what kind of flak he must be receiving.
DONALD B. BROWN
Torrance
* Yaroslavsky, using slogans of the radical left of post-World War I (“the merchants of death”), persuaded two misguided ladies to close down the Pomona gun show. Yes, the show offered plenty of hate literature and kids running around in Nazi uniforms, but it also offered books on Jewish military heroes and Judiac ceremonial items. It was America on display.
That trio succeeded in putting 2,000 vendors out of business and created a contract nightmare.
SAMUEL ZARCOFF
Los Angeles
* For sheer stupidity, it’s hard to top President Clinton’s plan to buy back privately owned guns (Sept. 9). Now anyone with a rusty, nonfunctional antique can get $50 toward the purchase of a reliable weapon, at public expense. The anti-gun crowd just goes from dumb to dumber!
ARTHUR HANSL
Santa Monica
* Doug Leffert wants to ban car shows on county grounds (letter, Sept. 13) instead of gun shows. I’m all for it, right after all guns are registered and owners are required to carry liability insurance. What works for cars would work for guns!
VICTOR KENYON BROWN
Los Angeles
* The attempt on the life of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak by an assailant with a knife (Sept. 7) demonstrates the great gulf between Egypt and the U.S. This kind of attack would never happen here. In the U.S. we use semiautomatic weapons with banana clips for this sort of thing.
PETER QUIMBY
Santa Barbara