More guns and less violence

Re: the editorial “Inflaming a culture war,” May 7:

I believe it is your paper that is fanning this flame. Gun violence in America has fallen dramatically over the past two decades, and the number of murders committed with a firearm is down too, according to a new report from the U.S. Justice Department.

As for where crime guns came from, the study notes that fewer than 2 percent of convicted inmates reported buying their weapons at gun shows or flea markets. Thirty-seven percent said the guns came from a family member or a friend. About 40 percent said the weapons were stolen or obtained from an illegal source. The rest say the guns were bought at a retail store or pawn shop.

Murders committed with a gun dropped 39 percent to 11,101 in 2011, from a high of 18,253 in 1993, according to the report.

All of this has occurred while gun ownership has exploded in America, yet you must home in on the National Rifle Association, an advocate for owning guns, to demean, demonize and vilify.

You also do not explain that allowing the expanded background checks you so adore is the first step to establishing a gun and owner registry. You also have conveniently forgotten or chosen to ignore that there is already an instant background check system, and that expanding it as it would be if the law passed would eventually become a very easy way to find and confiscate guns from law-abiding individuals.

Your use of tragedies perpetrated by mentally ill people is fear-mongering at best, and it will not work as long as informed and armed citizens are able to see through such nonsensical use of murders of innocent people. Had the teachers, janitors or the principal of the school had a firearm, many of those kids would be alive.

So, in the interests of children and every citizen who has or will become a victim of some unlawful maniac, please stop your incessant and supercilious anti-gun propaganda campaign.

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