Re: “Second Amendment as key today as it was 200 years ago” (Viewpoint, 11-28).
Writers Alan Gottlieb and Dave Workman refer to the constitutionality of a handgun ban that for the last 31 years has been in place in the District of Columbia. This ban is being challenged in the U.S. Supreme Court by a D.C. resident who was attacked by criminals and who claims he could not defend himself because of this ban.
The authors, who wrote “America Fights Back: Armed Self-Defense in a Violent Age,” obviously are opponents of strict gun control laws. I see the issue from a different perspective.
A few months ago, our son – who lives in a rather quiet neighborhood in the Capitol Hill of Washington, D.C. – was held up by two men while getting out of his car. A gun was pointed at him from 3 feet away, and he was told to hand over his wallet. He was let go when he gave it up.
I dread to wonder what would have happened if, instead of a wallet, our son had pulled out a gun “to defend himself.”
One can go on the Internet and see much research on the correlation between gun ownership with a country’s gun homicide rates. The statistics and arguments always seem to favor the researchers’ bias for or against strict gun laws.
There are some statistics, though, that cannot be manipulated or denied. Namely, that it is much easier to kill someone with a gun than with a knife or other means; that easy access to guns in America makes them available to the intoxicated, the angry, the depressed; and that many studies verify that there tend to be far fewer gun deaths in countries with strictly enforced gun control laws.
A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for instance, cites that in 1994, the United States accounted for 45 percent of the 88,649 gun deaths reported by the world’s richest 36 nations. In Japan, where few people own guns, the percentage dropped to 1. A 1997 study by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime found that the United Kingdom has 0.13 gun homicides per 100,000 people, Germany had 0.21 and the United States had 6.24.
Guns kill easily and effectively, and the fact that they are weapons that do not require physical contact by the perpetrator with the victim makes them easier to use.
Is it not time to rid ourselves of our romantic cowboy/pioneer days mentality and join other nations that have saner gun laws?
Do we in this day and age, when America has moved from a rural to a more urban society, really need to own guns to defend ourselves? Is it not embarrassing to be the leader in gun homicides in the Western democratic nations?
Surely those who hunt or have other valid reasons to own a gun should be able to have one under very stringent rules and tests. But to bring more relaxed gun laws into our problematic cities seems downright foolish.
Karin Morris of Tacoma is a retired art teacher.
JOIN THE DISCUSSION | Register here
We welcome comments. Please keep them civil, short and to the point. ALL CAPS, spam, obscene, profane, abusive and off topic comments will be deleted. Repeat offenders will be blocked. Thanks for taking part — and abiding by these simple rules. A thorough explanation of rules of conduct can be found in our Terms of Service. If you have any questions, including why your comment may not be showing immediately after you submit it, be sure to visit the commenting FAQ.