In Defense of Concealed-Weapon Permits
* Whom do you think you’re kidding with your editorial “A Bit of the Old West” (Jan. 4)?
The editorial contains no data as to how many of the concealed weapons issued in Orange County were used in the commission of a crime.
Now, if the permits issued were used in violent crimes, this would be a powerful indictment of the sheriff’s policy.
Something else not mentioned was the years of positive experience law enforcement has had in states like Arizona and Florida, where concealed-weapons permits have been issued in the tens of thousands.
Your editorial amounts to your dislike and discomfort with guns and the law-abiding use of them.
GLENN HUSZTI
Fullerton
* I enjoy your editorials, but “A Bit of the Old West” is off-base.
Sheriff Mike Carona’s policy on concealed weapons is right on track.
A concealed weapon can be an individual’s answer to personal safety much as LoJack is to reducing car theft. No advertising necessary, if every fourth person or so were carrying a concealed weapon. Watch crime plummet.
Yes, the occasional accidental death as a result is far outweighed by the killings and injuries caused as a result of innocent Americans unable or not allowed to defend themselves.
CRAIG JONES
Laguna Niguel
* Will you ever learn? It has been 12 years since Florida passed a law liberalizing their concealed-carry laws.
Hundreds of thousands of people have been granted permits after careful background checks and training in the laws covering self-defense. They paid a fee and they were then allowed the privilege of carrying a concealed firearm. Since then, 30 other states have followed suit.
In every case, people predicted that there would be a new “Wild West” in their state. Vast numbers of people would be gunned down by these new carriers of concealed firearms. It didn’t happen.
If Sheriff Mike Carona’s idea for loosening up the concealed-carry permit situation in Orange County was something that nobody else had ever done, I could understand a certain fear of it, but it is not something new.
Carona is not going to just hand out permits like prizes at a bingo game. If he did, then any person abused by a permit holder would be quite correct to include the sheriff in any criminal or civil actions. Carona is not a fool.
He should be applauded for his courage in doing the fashionably incorrect thing. I applaud him!
CHRIS D. PHILLIPS
La Habra
* So the beat goes on. In your editorial you take Sheriff Mike Carona to task for issuing concealed weapons permits.
Do you have some hidden evidence of abuses of permits that you are not sharing? Are police daily confronted by these potential felons? I think not.
Although I understand the motives of Costa Mesa Police Chief David L. Snowden and Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca to maintain favor with The Times and its attitude that no gun is a good gun, I am concerned with an official attitude that only police officers can be trusted with guns.
I find it incredible that only 48 people in L.A. County are deemed trustworthy enough to have a concealed permit, but every rookie policeman has one.
Most police I know, and as a former prosecutor I know many, are uniformly in favor of the solid citizens having guns to defend themselves and feel no threat from them, apparently unlike Chief Snowden.
I believe you should drop your editorial euphemism “gun control,” and state what you really support: gun elimination.
Your attack on the licensed right to carry of citizens who have undergone background checks and proved proficiency with the weapon, as Carona requires, only underscores your deception.
JOE A. DICKERSON
Costa Mesa