Education is the best form of gun control
As your March 3 editorial "In the wake of this shooting" stated, gun locks probably would not have prevented the tragic shooting of the six-year-old girl in Michigan.
Why are electrical receptacles not required to be sold with child-safety covers? Why are bicycles not required to be sold with helmets? Why are sharp kitchen knives not required to be sold with blade locks?
There are any number of things that can cause the death of a child, most are involved far more often than a handgun (swimming pools for another example).
Trigger locks are readily available to anyone who chooses to buy one. No one should be forced to buy something they have no use for. (I own guns, have no small children, and have a gun safe.)
The best prevention for childhood fatalities is education, not legislation. You cannot legislate common sense, but you can teach it.
Bruce Rowen Socorro, N.M.
With all due respect, we have layers upon layers of gun-control laws. As a concerned parent, I would like to see some zealous law enforcement of existing laws, some of which have already been designed to protect school children. What happens to the mother or guardian of this six-year-old boy remains to be seen, but to suggest more gun control is looking in the wrong direction.
Becky K. Kato Redondo Beach, Calif.
It is not honest to advocate more gun control without first considering the impact, positive and negative, of current laws, including pitiful enforcement of current laws by the Clinton administration. What good would a new set of unenforced laws do?
Steve Masten Sandy Hook, Conn.
Bush will get my vote but that's it
Regarding your article "If McCain stumbles, whither his legions?" (March 7): It rings so true to me. I am a 20-something Republican who has been turned off by the election process these past few years. With the hopes of finally ridding our country of the Clinton influence, we were presented with George W. Bush. The problem though, is that he did not express why he wanted to be the president of our country. It became very difficult to explain to people, or to myself for that matter, why I supported him except that he had the best chance of beating Al Gore.
Then I started to listen to a man with a vision. A man who had great character and who inspired me. That man was John McCain. I have never involved myself in any campaigns but I was drawn to support him. I have prepared myself for Super Tuesday to mark the end of the line for my candidate. But aghast at the prospect of having Clinton II in office, I will uninspiringly vote for Bush.
However, I will not be active in his campaign. Once again, it will be politics as usual. I do hope that McCain will have left his mark on the political process so that in 2004, the people of America will have a candidate we can all rally around.
Michael J. Constantinou Stamford, Conn.
McCain obscure? Hardly!
Regarding "McCain's free speech may alter way campaigns are run" (March 3): You wrote that "McCain is not the first candidate to rise from relative obscurity in a presidential nomination race...."
McCain rising from "obscurity"? The man has been a United States Senator for years! I wouldn't look in the Senate for unknown characters. His participation in legislative issues before Congress has hardly been invisible. I confess, though, that nine years ago I could not have told you who the governor of Arkansas was.
Rob Browning Dallas
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