Editor:
This is in response to Justin Birch’s April 10 letter to the editor, “Guns on Campus Are Dangerous.”
First, he is right. Guns kill people. Here in America and around the world they kill people. I would estimate that more than 99 percent of all firearms sold on the world market today were designed to inflict death efficiently.
But there are several points with which I have to disagree. For starters, my first reaction wasn’t “you liberal jerk!”
Don’t pretend to know what’s going through my mind or try to put words in my mouth. I’m sure others would agree with that statement.
Another point is that it has never been proven that gun control saves lives. In fact, research has indicated that gun control can and has had the effect of increasing gun crime. Was anyone aware that a year or two ago it was concluded that the Brady Gun Act has had no effect on violent crime with firearms whatsoever.
After seven years of promising safer streets the anti-gunners were eating their promises. Moreover, in countries where there have been, recent large-scale firearms confiscations violent crime has skyrocketed. England’s per capita violent crime rate recently surpassed that of the United States’.
Finally, it doesn’t matter what your political affiliation is or how you view the Second Amendment. It’s how you relate to reality. If any one in this school thinks that by banning all guns in America tomorrow gun deaths would go away, stick a star on your forehead and go back to kindergarten.
Firearms are here to stay, don’t try and take them from those who obey the law. The effort would be as successful as the U.S. policy on drug interdiction. Thirty million illegal firearms would still be on the streets, and criminals would still use them to kill. The rest of us would just be easier to mug and rape.
If anyone would like more information on how gun control, in most cases, has been a failure, go check out www.NRA.com. I know it is the great satan of special interest groups, but it may help alleviate some of the ignorance that plagues us here at the U.
Paul Peterson, Junior, Economics