THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 8, 1994 TAG: 9407080012
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Short : 34 lines
``Why has it taken so long to target arms?'' by Dawson Mills (commentary, June 26) will undoubtedly elicit a party-line response from many members of the National Rifle Association.
I believe that my 2-year-old granddaughter will live to see a country in which the Second Amendment shall have been either repealed or drastically modified in its interpretation. And the handgun advocates will have only themselves to blame.
Mr. Mills invites our attention to the positions of other countries regarding strict control of firearms, intimating that there is a dark side to the American psyche in this issue. We are looked upon as the Wild West, and handguns have long been out of control here. But our history as a nation is one of violent origin, of religious controversy, of forging settlements in the wilderness with ax and flintlock, of pitting brother against brother in a tragic civil war and of the ready resort to violence externally in our foreign policy and internally in domestic matters. We are not yet a fully mature society, but we are making progress.
With time and the dissemination of educated opinion like that of Mr. Mills, we will eventually become a less violent society; but this will not happen overnight.
ANTHONY P. PIRRONE
Virginia Beach, June 26, 1994 by CNB