Dear Editor
Dear Editor Gun Control I am writing in response lo the article by Peter C. Stuart, entitled "Shooting Down Gun Control" (NL, September 11). I wish to point out some factual errors made by Stuart...
...It was a very real issue to the people who wrote our Constitution, just as it is a very real issue lo those who support and uphold the Constitution and (he Bill of Rights today...
...But opposed to the regulations were sheriffs, police chiefs and individual policemen from across the country...
...Guns are only a scapegoat for short-sighted liberals who refuse to recognize that the causes of crime in America are much more deeply rooted than they care to admit...
...The holding in the case was an extremely narrow one stating that there was not enough evidence to prove that a sawed-off shotgun was a proper militia weapon...
...A number of the paintings there had never before been seen in New York, and perhaps won't be again for quite a while...
...He is in the best position to see, first hand, that gun controls will not reduce crime...
...Stuart's interpretation of the holding in U.S...
...New York City and Washington, D.C...
...These large groups are composed of high police officials who see gun control laws as a means to build up bureaucratic empires...
...In favor of the regulations were the IACP and the police commissioners of large cities, such as Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Washington, and Detroit...
...It is pretty ridiculous that everybody is making such a fuss about Tut when the Metropolitan has one of the finest permanent collections of Egyptian art in the world...
...Rochester...
...Whereas police groups such as the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) may support gun control, the cop on the beat does not...
...Yet crime persists, as do guns, and the laws only become traps for the unwary, not necessarily the criminal...
...law enforcement groups are among the oldest supporters of gun control laws...
...But the NRA is uncharacteristically modest in soft-pedaling its own role in drumming up the barrage of letters it cites as evidence of spontaneous opposition to the ATF's proposed hand gun regulations...
...Their only common feature was a concern for the democratic process and a belief in the Constitution...
...To grumble that too many people showed up to sec them is rather mean-spirited...
...I would suggest that if Stuart is to write about gun control again, he should check his facts a little more closely...
...In addition, they were an attempt by an agency of the Executive branch to make law, a power given strictly to Congress by the Constitution...
...It must be interpreted and applied with that end in view...
...There were only two letters from the NRA-one stating that we opposed the regulations and the other making official arguments against them...
...agency's authority and were properly rejected by Congress on that basis alone...
...Life is short...
...A brief glimpse of something you might never see again as long as you live may be worth more than an hour with a masterpiece that is always around...
...v. Miller is completely off-base...
...Nowhere has a gun control law had any effect on the crime rate...
...Also, there was no "fusillade of 300,000 letters from the NRA...
...This is hardly what one might call a definitive word on the issue...
...Walter S. Booth Office of the General Counsel National Rifle Association of America Peter Stuart replies: It is scarcely surprising that the NRA would disagree with my analysis of the latest bushwhacking of Federal hand gun control, or that it would take a less than objective view of the facts of the episode...
...On the other hand, it strikes me as a little silly ("wistful," I believe, is the word Muller uses) to complain about the immense crowds at the Van Gogh and Cezanne exhibits...
...Washington, D.C...
...It might be argued that Japan has strict gun control laws and this has resulted in a low crime rate...
...This is to illustrate that foreign examples do not bear on the problems that are unique to America...
...v. Miller (reaffirming at least three previous cases), the wording couldn't be more clear: "With obvious purpose to assure the continuation and render the effectiveness of such forces [state militias], the declaration and guarantee of the Second Amendment were made...
...have very strict laws which virtually prohibit the private, legal possession of handguns...
...Overall, the sentiment of the law enforcement community was 9-1 against the ATF gun control regulations...
...They were firearms registration in a disguised form...
...The crime fighting capability of state and local gun control laws has been hobbled, of course, by the accessibility of firearms in nearby jurisdictions...
...4. The ATF regulations were not modest proposals, as claimed...
...The cop on the beat is the one who realizes that gun controls will not keep the guns out of the hands of criminals...
...2. Stuart's allusion to gun control as a crime-fighting device is completely fallacious...
...There were, however, over 337,000 letters from concerned citizens who cared enough to write their congressmen and express their concern about these regulations...
...An idea of law enforcement sentiment on this matter can be derived from the comments sent to the Treasury Department's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) concerning the recent proposed regulations...
...Brief Lives I was sympathetic to Marion Muller's thoughts on the Tutankhamun exhibit ("Cultural Inflation," NL, September 25...
...I wish to point out some factual errors made by Stuart on the gun issue...
...These citizens were from all walks of life and from every state in the union...
...Even so, Congress' General Accounting Office concluded earlier this year that such laws have proven effective "in reducing the availability of firearms, and consequently, the number of gun-related crimes and especially the number of gun-related deaths...
...He is 75...
...Paul Giasson Correction In Loma Halm's article, "Time of Trouble in Tunisia" (NL, October 23), the age of Habib Bour-guiba was incorrectly given as 64...
...It is too easy to blame an inanimate object for the long standing social ills that are really the causes of crime...
...3. The Constitutional Right to keep and bear arms is not a "phony issue" as Stuart claims...
...As for the Constitutional relevance of the Supreme Court decision in U.S...
...This case did not hold that the Second Amendment applies only to the National Guard, as he implies...
...These regulations clearly exceeded the The New Leader welcomes comment and criticism on any of its features, but letters should not exceed 300 words...
...1 would counter with the example of Switzerland, where machine guns and other weapons are in every home and which also has a low crime rate...
Vol. 61 • November 1978 • No. 23
