Readers React: Guns in the hands of children, what’s right?

To the editor: Pardon me, but we have rights in this country, and as long as something is legal, people have no obligation to forfeit those rights. (Re “Gun ranges debate child safety,” Aug. 29)

Did the instructor sign a release covering mishaps at the gun range? Almost certainly he did. Did the parents of the 9-year old sign a release? Almost certainly. All legal.

Legalities aside, of course, common sense dictates this never should have happened. And legislation extending the requirement that you must be at least 18 years old to own a gun — extending it to gun access at shooting ranges or elsewhere — will (unfortunately) be opposed by the god-like wrath of the NRA.

Jon Merritt, Los Angeles

To the editor: I know it’s a waste of breath, but even do-gooders and gun haters should know how to use one.

Let’s not let this foolish, awful accident prohibit that. And I recommend that they all read an article about guns and gun safety.

M.B. Nachman, Venice

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To the editor: It should not be a surprise. After the death of an instructor at a shooting range, killed while teaching a 9-year-old girl to fire a fully automatic Uzi, a bevy of NRA acolytes comes forth telling the nation that we should not keep kids away from firearms.

Hmm. One wonders how these folks would react if a doctor was informing a 9-year -old girl about the wisdom of being vaccinated against cervical cancer and of being familiar with birth control.

Frank Ferrone, El Cajon

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To the editor: In your article, “gun enthusiast Tom” worries that anti-gun zealots will “exploit” the recent fatal shooting in Arizona into “mass hysteria” about kids and guns.

If thousands of citizens died every year from Ebola, would Americans be dulled into inaction or would they insist on reasonable, perhaps even extraordinary laws to control the emergency? Why are we so constrained by the 2nd Amendment that the reality of all those who succumb to death by firearms every day somehow fails to excite?

“Tom” has it exactly backward: The problem is not that there will be hysteria over this newest gun tragedy, it’s that there will be no hysteria at all.

James Clark, La Cañada-Flintridge

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