THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, May 22, 1996 TAG: 9605220016
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: 28 lines
A May 11 letter criticizes a Virginian-Pilot editorial for focusing on firearms ``as if they were the cause of crime.'' In the real world, not the world of bumper-sticker slogans, firearms are indeed the cause of some crimes.
A Richmond newspaper recently contained this headline: ``Dispute Ends in Shooting.'' The story told about a quarrel between a father and son that ended when the son fatally shot the father.
Instead of simply counting the good-news times when a gun-toter scares off a criminal, the NRA should also count the times an argument escalated into homicide because guns are so easily at hand.
Curb the criminals, said the letter writer, and he made some very valid points about flaws in our justice system. But there are too many people who have become ``criminals'' because pulling a trigger was such an available alternative.
Could I not speculate that gun controls have saved a single life somewhere in America? And isn't that one life enough? What is the human arithmetic here that makes some inconvenience to the law-abiding gun owner acceptable? I wonder.
TONY STEIN
Chesapeake, May 12, 1996 by CNB