Opinion: It isn’t prosecutors’ job to put the gun that killed Kate Steinle on trial

To the editor: Robin Abcarian places part of the blame for Kate Steinle’s death in San Francisco on the U.S. Bureau of Land Management ranger whose loaded gun was stolen from his car and eventually ended up as the weapon used in this tragic killing. (“Trump blames her death on an immigrant. But why did her killer have a gun in the first place?” Oct. 24)

Abcarian’s logic is this: What if the gun had been properly secured? Then it would not have been stolen. Then it would not have somehow gotten into the hands of an illegal immigrant with multiple convictions, and Steinle would not have been killed.

Someone burgled the BLM agent’s car and stole the weapon. One can only speculate how it got into the hands of Jose Ines Garcia Zarate, the man standing trial for second-degree murder. From that point, whether the weapon was accidentally discharged while he handled it or it went off because he pulled the trigger for some reason, the facts are that the bullet from the gun killed an innocent young woman, and the facts appear to prosecutors to argue that Garcia Zarate was handling the gun.

That’s why Garcia Zarate is on trial. Abcarian’s musings about the tragic chain of events that led to this senseless tragedy are a distraction from the justice system holding an accused killer accountable.

Michael Hertel, Claremont

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To the editor: Abcarian asks why Garcia Zarate had a gun in the first place. If that’s not a question that answers itself in this gun- and violence-crazed country, I do not know what is.

Imagine there were nearly enough pigs in this country for each American to own one, and that one could easily go to a county fair and acquire more with less hassle than getting a driver’s license. In this scenario, how surprising would it be to stumble upon a rasher of bacon?

Oddly enough, The Times also published an editorial this week opposing a bill in Congress to mandate so-called concealed carry reciprocity. Great! How much safer would Mexicans have been if they had built a sea wall around the country after Ramon Mercader, a Spanish communist with ties to Stalin, murdered Leon Trotsky with an ice pick?

Les Herold, Wrightwood, Calif.

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