Gun Control Laws Before Legislature

Your April 13 editorial calls for opening the debate on gun control in the California Legislature. The barrage of bills recently introduced opens it in the wrong direction.

Over 30 states have found that “right to carry” legislation results in an overall reduction in the rate of violent crimes by empowering ordinary, law-abiding citizens and offering them some small measure of self-protection by allowing them to carry handguns for self-defense.

Handguns are used over 2.5 million times a year in the prevention of violent crime by ordinary citizens. We should not be considering bills that further restrict our citizens, when it is clear that such restrictions only make them helpless in the face of violent criminals who are well-armed.

Neither should we be considering governmental actions to increase the firepower of law enforcement. Police are our protectors and our friends--not our overlords. The courage of the LAPD in dealing with the paramilitary bank robbers was admirable. There may be a need to reorganize the forces available to deal with a threat such as this. But the cop on the beat doesn’t need M-16s or combat gear to fulfill his mission.

California seems stuck in the past, when it continues to propose restrictive gun control measures that affect only law-abiding citizens. We need a new approach to our problems, one based on respect for ordinary citizens and on a determination to lock up criminals, not citizens.

CHARLES B. TAYLOR

Rancho Santa Margarita

* I am astonished--and offended--that The Times continues to clamor for increasing restrictions on the civil rights of the community of law-abiding gun owners.

The Times pretends to support group tolerance and cultural diversity, yet shamefully excludes one of our nation’s most historic groups: the gun culture and its proud heritage of freedom.

JON HAUPT

Pasadena