Readers gun for firearms owners’ rights

I must take exception to the spate of anti-gun articles which have recently appeared in the pages of the Bangor Daily News. Even though they may be presented in all sincerity, they often have the effect of being totally offensive.

I refer specifically to a recent column by Molly Ivins, who suggested that we should copy the British system of gun control, a system which effectively bans all private citizens from having guns. Ms. Ivins seems to have completely lost sight of the fact that this particular issue was one of the reasons the Revolutionary War was fought, and that privately owned guns in the hands of private citizens were the main reason that war was won, founding this nation and its principles.

If people such as Ms. Ivins would take the trouble to investigate seriously with open minds, they would find that violent crime using firearms in Britain is rising rapidly, gun ban or no. Such laws never have and never will prevent crime in any country where they are enacted, as their only purpose is to disarm the citizenry and control it.

We should have learned a lesson about trying to legislate something out of existence from prohibition. Such short-sighted and emotional attempts at remedy do not solve any problem, they only exacerbate it, in the case of prohibition leaving us with such after-effects as the Mafia. The only way to effectively go after this problem is to work on the criminals who abuse the rights of other citizens, not to strip away what is often the only defense a law-abiding person has left. Walter E. Emery Eastport

Having had the opportunity to read numerous articles in the BDN about violent crimes in general and gun control specifically, I feel compelled to express my opinion. It seems to me that no one in the government and certainly no one in the media is offering any solid solutions that address the real problem, the criminals. Criminal control is what we should be reading about, not yet another assault on our rights. Some of these articles calling for gun control make no sense.

Molly Ivins’ column on Jan. 6 is a case in point. First, she calls for a ban on handguns and assault rifles, then she says hunters and sport handgun shooters should be able to continue their chosen activities. Later, she calls for gun licensing, registration, and insurance requirements, and then incredibly admits that it will have no effect on the ability of the “bad guys” to get guns. This woman actually gets paid for this!

Law-abiding, responsible citizens who happen to own guns, hunt and target shoot should not be the scapegoats for this country’s violent crime problem. The NRA shouldn’t be held accountable every time someone commits a crime with a gun. While the antis claim it’s “reasonable” to have waiting periods, registration, gun bans, insurance requirements, etc. many of them admit it will have little effect on crime. That doesn’t seem reasonable to me.

Let’s get serious about crime control and, more specifically, criminal control. If prisons are overcrowded, build more, make criminals serve the time they’re given. If a person is convicted three times for crimes, then maybe he or she should count on spending the rest of his or her life in jail. The current administration thinks education of young people is the answer to deterring crime. I agree, but let’s start at a very early age and keep on top of it. How early? How about age 3? Waiting until a child is a teen-ager is much too late.

Again, don’t blame gun owners for all of the violent crime problems. We want a solution more than anyone. Quick-fix, feel-good gun control is not the answer. David B. Dow Old Town