In the editorial of May 13-14 concerning the Million Mom March, the BDN editors have illustrated a predisposition in favor of more gun control. Particularly objectionable is the not-too-subtle attempt to form a link between drunken drivers and law-abiding gun owners.

Reasonable people do not have to rely on debunked figures to prove their point, as with the “12 children killed by gunfire per day in 1997.” It has been well-established that the “children” referred to include drug dealers and gang-bangers up to 25 years old in some cases, as well as police shootings and justifiable homicides. Even Handgun Control Inc. concedes that guns are used at least 100,000 times a year to defend against criminals. The real figure is between 600,000 and 2 million. This works out to 1,644 to 5,479 times a day, yet legal gun owners are portrayed as social pariahs. There are more firearms in this country than ever, yet there are fewer accidents than at any time since the early 1900s.

A good illustration of the benefits of allowing the government to co-opt our rights happened recently when the computers at the FBI that run the instant background checks of gun buyers broke down. In the meantime all gun sales are off. Andrew Rudzinski Corinth

The Million Mom March was a sham. It was not the inspiration of a well-intentioned mother but rather a Clinton-orchestrated production.

What about the estimated millions of Americans who prevent crime by using a hand gun each year? What about the tax violation the march seems to have made by its political statements? What about the people who will die while trying to get the trigger lock off their gun?

Thomas Jefferson said, “The beauty of the Second Amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it.” We are terribly close to that time already. The teeth of the First Amendment is the Second Amendment. George A. Fogg North Yarmouth