Pro-Gun Billboards Under Fire

The only faces missing from the 300 billboards promoting guns for Americans are the faces of our children (“Billboard Campaign Pushes Gun Ownership,” Oct. 15). It doesn’t look like any kids are included on the billboards, although gun users certainly have included 6-to 16-year-olds who were amazingly adept at killing. And don’t forget the crazies. Better that I arm myself and feel I can blast away at lethal germs or terrorists bombs with handguns--that’s empowerment. And I guess while I’m at it, I should keep throwing my precious tax money at “Star Wars.” If I’m going to eschew reality, I might as well go all the way.

Judith Markoff Hansen

Los Angeles

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Everyone who loves and owns guns--many, many guns--knows implicitly that we, as a society, are all safer when criminals don’t know who’s armed. In fact, I routinely give out guns to complete strangers in order to fool even myself, thus preventing me from becoming a criminal too. So, I would urge everyone who has a gun to buy more and give them away, and everyone who doesn’t own a gun to immediately go out and buy one or more, then randomly give them away. Guns are God’s gift to a safe society. Hell, the Middle East proved that!

Now, if I could only find my guns. Honey! Kids! Do you know where my guns are?

Todd Koerner

Hermosa Beach

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Re “Davis Leans Left on Last Day of Signing,” Oct. 15: So, Gov. Gray Davis and the liberal California Legislature believe gun owners need to take “gun safety” classes. Since more people die in pool accidents than gun accidents, perhaps Davis and the Legislature should also require pool owners to take “pool safety” classes. Hunters and sportsmen do not need to be lectured on “gun safety” by elitist politicians in Sacramento.

This new law makes it prohibitively difficult for law-abiding citizens to buy guns and does absolutely nothing to curb the sale of guns on the black market.

Ben Rothman

Culver City

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Well, I guess the gun-grabbers in California got their wish. Now honest, law-abiding citizens will be required to have a de facto license before exercising their constitutional right to purchase a handgun, in addition to a 10-day waiting period. Meanwhile, street criminals will continue to enjoy unfettered access to whatever they want by simply contacting the local black-market gun vendor on the street corner.

Who are these licensing schemes supposed to protect? If they are supposed to protect the average Joe citizen like me, please, I can do without the protection.

Miguel Rosales

Cerritos