Armed Citizens Can Help Prevent Crimes

Re “Debt to Police Beyond Salary,” Nov. 3:

This article quickly developed into a misguided and inaccurate anti-gun project. Roger Von Butow lists two experiences with guns. In the first, he follows the sounds of gunfire to a cluster of citizens saying, “How could this happen?” The reality that armed aggression can happen anywhere is the primary reason a great many good, ordinary citizens choose to arm themselves.

Dr. John Lott, a senior research scholar at Yale University Law School in a study with the University of Chicago, discovered that guns are used five times as often to prevent as to commit crimes. Thirty-one states now have laws allowing qualified citizens to carry concealed firearms for self-defense. These states have enjoyed lower levels of violent crimes than the general population. Mass public shootings fall dramatically in states that pass such laws. Common sense will tell you why.

If I were a burglar, a rapist or a child molester, I would be the most anti-gun person on the planet. Armed citizens are the greatest occupational hazard for the career criminal. More than a dozen scientific studies on both sides of the gun-control issue have revealed that average Americans use guns to defend themselves against criminals at least 1 million times every year, most of the time without having to fire a single shot.

Dan Estrada

Temecula