Letters: Are stricter gun laws the answer?

Re “There is no safety in our vast numbers of weapons,” Column, Dec. 16

Steve Lopez and others have exploited the tragedy in Connecticut to get gun control laws added to the many we already have.

Anyone who wants a gun will get it. The idea that we can make our country safe by writing a law on paper doesn’t acknowledge reality. There are too many people who overlook those laws. Violence cannot be completely avoided.

A separate article on Saturday sheds light on the reality. It reported that a knife-wielding attacker in China slashed 22 children in a school. The article noted, “China has strict gun laws, so knives are the weapon of choice in violent crimes.”

I don’t think it can be stated any clearer than that. There are violent individuals among our species.

Clyde Hammett

Bellflower

Lopez’s column made an interesting if unplanned point.

A gun shopper is quoted as saying, “You can legislate all you want and it’s not going to stop the bad guys.”

Instead of the rather bland term “bad guys,” how about referring to “mass killers”? Makes it seem somewhat more important to really do something, doesn’t it?

Tom Burton

Van Nuys

Against the tragedy in Connecticut, we have “other news” — an attacker slashed 22 kids at a school in China, and it looks as if those kids will live. This seems like a case for gun control. In fact, China has strict gun laws.

China also has strict information laws. In the United States, many would be willing to defend to the death our right to freedom of expression. The Chinese government can rest easy knowing that the civilian population is armed only with knives.

What we’d really like to do is outlaw the insanity that resulted in these two attacks. Because we can’t do that, we should be careful in demanding that the government do something.

Dan Rycroft

Costa Mesa

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