Re: Letter: Career criminals commit most gun crime
Writing as a woman who once, with my young child, was under threat of murder by a mentally unstable domestic partner with a legally owned weapon, I feel compelled to respond to the letter on gun crime.
Firstly, as I recall, gun owners did lobby hard, and did waste federal effort and funds, to shut down the gun registry, which for a brief period in the early 2000s, allowed law protection agencies to more efficiently track illegally and legally obtained weapons of all calibres.
Secondly, and even more egregiously, “most’ gun crime may well be committed with weapons that fall below the radar of law protection. Does that mean we should not do all in our capacity to prevent tragic deaths and maimings in all other cases of gun crime?
Guns are lethal. Period. If Mr. Timmins and the 200 other old guys that he refers to, with full auto firearms, can prove their guns are sealed in unbreakable storage, perhaps an exception could be made for them to protect their pride of ownership.
From my perspective, however, no amount of pride or hobby interest can trump the need to keep lethal weapons, legally or illegally obtained, out of the hands of (even temporarily) mentally unstable individuals and/or criminals.
We need to be a jurisdiction with the means to more effectively manage access to guns, unlike the jurisdictions cited by the letter writer.
Heather Plaizier,
Mountain View County
