Letters: Guns and homicides

Re “Assault weapons ban advances,” March 15

In supporting her bill to ban assault weapons, Sen. Dianne Feinstein recounts her experience as a San Francisco supervisor in 1978 with the senseless slayings of her colleagues Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone. Bringing this up in a discussion about banning assault weapons is a bit disingenuous.

The gunman, former Supervisor Dan White, was an ex-police officer who used his service revolver. He reloaded it with the extra rounds of ammunition he had in his pocket in addition to the six rounds in the gun. He did not use an assault weapon with a high-capacity magazine.

Feinstein would do much better invoking that tragic day if she were sponsoring legislation to improve mental health services for people like White, who, claiming to be suffering depression, was convicted of manslaughter instead of murder.

Stephen Fredrick

Newport Beach

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