Correspondence
Correspondence THE LENIENT LEFT WILLIAM G. MAYER's "A Real National Security Debate" (June 24) is right on. While it may be politically correct to body-search blue-haired grandmothers at our...
...Denying the obvious is a luxury a country at war cannot afford THOMAS M. BEATTIE Mt...
...From excusing Communist tyranny to denying that differences exist between the sexes, the left has a legacy of championing positions that defy common sense...
...Vernon, VA A MOST DANGEROUS GAME JOHN J. DIIULIO JR...
...argues that, given weak empirical evidence to the contrary, "returning unsupervised sex offenders to the community without so much as notifying their nearby neighbors is like playing Russian roulette with residents' safety" ("Three Cheers for One Strike," June 17...
...I have one small nit-pick about the article, though...
...Furthermore, I take exception to Barone's claim that Lyndon Johnson and his disastrous defense secretary Robert McNamara did not over-control the military...
...And who can forget Jimmy Carter's deer-in-the-headlights reaction when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, or Bill Clinton's wag-the-dog response to terrorism...
...BERT SHRINE JR...
...STEVEN M. SANDERS Franklin, MA WE LOVE GUNS WHILE I AGREE with the basic thrust of Eli Lehrer's reasoning as to why America is safer than Europe from the standpoint of violent crime, he seems to write around a couple of important points ("Crime Without Punishment," May 27...
...The scholar John Lott hasn't so much shown that greater gun ownership reduces crime, but rather that greater numbers of law-abiding citizens carrying concealed weapons does so...
...To them, "evil" is just a cultural misunderstanding that can be resolved with a little empathy and a group hug...
...BROOKS LYMAN Groton, MA WHO'S IN CHARGE...
...While Leighton Smith may have provided Richard Holbrooke "mulish opposition" in Bosnia, it was as a Navy admiral, not an Army general...
...The basic ownership of firearms—at home or in one's place of business—certainly has a deterrent effect on robberies and burglaries, particularly "hot burglaries" conducted while the residents are present, otherwise called "home invasions...
...Republicans should support beefing up the defense and intelligence agencies and profiling when necessary...
...And yet civil libertarians and left-wing politicians want us to ignore this link while at the same time our government is asking us to be on alert for suspicious activity...
...A retired Navy captain myself, I was stationed at Cecil Field in Jacksonville in 1975 with then Commander "Snuffy" Smith when he was both a squadron commander and a formidable golf opponent...
...Mayer does what Republicans should do more actively: He exposes the Democrats' past weakness on matters of national defense...
...Pensacola, FL...
...It was the left that criticized President Reagan and that now criticizes President Bush for referring to U.S...
...Every night, minute scrutiny of bombing targets for carrier airstrikes...
...It is, however, the increased carrying of concealed weapons by the law-abiding that has brought about a significant reduction of violent street crime in those states where concealed-carry laws have been liberalized...
...The mixed message Americans are receiving plays into the hands of our enemies...
...While it may be politically correct to body-search blue-haired grandmothers at our nation's airports, do we really want to trust the left when it comes to our national security...
...To strengthen the analogy, one might say that returning unsupervised sex offenders to communities without notification is like holding guns to the heads of others, most notably the vulnerable young, who do not enter such "games" voluntarily...
...Europe (and particularly Britain) lacks this deterrent, as fewer citizens own firearms...
...But if DiIulio is correct, the situation is much worse, since participants in Russian roulette only hold guns to their own heads...
...I ENJOYED MICHAEL BARONE's "War Is Too Important to Be Left to the Generals" (June 10), as I do all of his writings...
...Data on concealed weapons ownership should be factored into any evaluation of crime reduction in America and any comparison with Europe...
...But for a few home-grown nuts, the vast majority of recent assaults against American interests, at home and abroad, have been at the hands of Middle Eastern men...
...enemies as "evil...
...Surely they went beyond "reasonably regarding this as a political matter," as Pacific commanders in chief Moorer and Sharp have carefully detailed in their respective books on the Vietnam conflict...
Vol. 7 • July 2002 • No. 41
