
<DOC>
<DOCNO>
WSJ910208-0130
</DOCNO>
<DOCID>
910208-0130.
</DOCID>
<HL>
   Letters to the Editor:
   Forget Gun Control; It's Crime Control
</HL>
<DATE>
02/08/91
</DATE>
<SO>
WALL STREET JOURNAL (J), PAGE A13
</SO>
<LP>
   In response to Michael Gartner's Viewpoint "Tell Me a Good
Reason for Handguns" (Jan. 10, op-ed page): Mr. Gartner
conveniently omits many pertinent facts concerning the use
and abuse of guns in America. Based on Justice Department
victimization surveys, felon surveys, the National
Association of Chiefs of Police law-enforcement survey,
Promis studies, research by the Rand Corp., and by
criminology researchers James D. Wright et al. and Gary
Kleck:
   -- More than 99.6% of U.S. handguns will not be involved
in criminal activity in any given year.
</LP>
<TEXT>
   -- More than 90% of police chiefs and sheriffs surveyed
agree that criminals are not affected by a ban on any type of
firearm, while more than 70% oppose "waiting periods" for the
same reason.
   -- A prisoner survey conducted by James D. Wright et al.
found that unarmed felons listed tougher penalties for using
a gun as an important reason for not arming themselves.
   -- 75%-80% of U.S. violent crimes are committed by career
criminals, many on some form of conditional or early release
(30%-35% of career criminals are rearrested with previous
criminal charges still pending).
   -- Gary Kleck found that using a gun for protection from
violent crime -- rape, robbery, assault -- reduces the
likelihood that the crime will be completed and that intended
victims will be injured.
   Clearly, the issue at hand is not gun control but, rather,
crime control.
   According to Mr. Gartner, "this year about 3,000
teen-agers . . . will use handguns to kill themselves. Some
9,000 adults will do the same." Suicides are, without doubt,
tragic events affecting parents, families and society. Is how
these people killed themselves the real issue, or is why more
important? The unfortunate truth is that if a person is
desperate or depressed enough to commit suicide, he will find
a way to do it. Guns or no guns.
   The most important fact of all must not be overlooked.
Criminals don't care about gun-control laws. They never have
and they never will.
   Frank T. Iorio
   Mamaroneck, N.Y.
   ---
   As a life member of the National Rifle Association, I
agree with Mr. Gartner -- it is not too much to ask for a
nationwide "seven-day `cooling-off' period" (the Brady Bill)
to give the authorities time for background checks. As a
law-abiding citizen, it would be of comfort to know that
other potential handgun buyers would be screened and keep
those with a criminal past from owning a handgun.
   The reason Washington has yet to enact serious gun-control
laws is due to the enormous voting and financial pressure of
the pro-gun lobby. While Congress is congratulating itself on
how well it acted during the vote on the Persian Gulf war,
more than 100 body bags were filled here in the U.S. due to
handgun violence. The NRA has not acted prudently and is
alienating the support and respect of many legislators,
police departments and its members.
   James Forbes
   Atlanta
   ---
   It is refreshing to read the actual motives of those who
claim they simply want a waiting period for the purchase of a
handgun. Mr. Gartner has now made it abundantly clear that
his goal is the elimination of handguns from our society. I
find it incongruous that the president of NBC News, a man who
should believe in the broadening of constitutional rights,
obviously has no regard for the Second Amendment rights to
keep and bear arms. I am sure that if there were a movement
to narrow and restrict the First Amendment freedoms of the
press, he would be at the forefront of the opposition.
   Mr. Gartner ignores the key issues regarding suicide and
crime. The problem is not the instrument used to kill oneself
or someone else. The problems are the breakdown of the family
(black and white); an education system that fails to educate;
poverty; illegal drugs, and emasculated police, justice and
penal systems. This has been the message preached by the NRA
for years. As evidenced by New York City and Washington,
which have the nation's strictest gun-control laws and
virtually ban the ownership of handguns by law-abiding
citizens, Mr. Gartner's placebo doesn't work because it
ignores the root causes of suicide and crime.
   Richard W. Bonds
   Cordova, Tenn.
   ---
   Mr. Gartner should have read The Federalist No. 46 by
James Madison before he wrote his anti-gun diatribe. If he
had, he would understand that the constitutional guarantee of
uninfringed firearms possession is for protection against
tyranny. It has nothing to do with duck hunting or target
shooting.
   Furthermore, Madison makes it clear that state militias,
by the fact of their being organized, would give private arms
their greatest effectiveness in the resistance to tyranny.
Otherwise, in the words of Alexander Hamilton, "the citizens
must rush tumultuously to arms, without concert, without
system, without resource; except in their courage and
despair." Thus the "well-organized militia" phrase in the
Second Amendment was not intended to restrict arms to those
in the militia -- as the anti-gun lobby would have us
believe.
   When we realize that the individual right to keep and bear
arms is our ultimate defense against tyranny, all of the
arguments about magazine capacity, armor-piercing bullets,
sporting use, etc. suddenly stand before us in their naked
falsity.
   Robert M. Beckett
   Fountain Valley, Calif.
</TEXT>
</DOC>

