Dear editor:
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We are writing in response to the Guns & Women article in the February 4 issue of the Reader. It was distressing and surprising that the article makes little reference to the fact that nearly half (48 percent) of all gun deaths are suicides and that another 18 percent of gun deaths are friends shooting friends or family members shooting family members. This means nearly 70 percent of all gun deaths are not people killing criminals trying to break into homes, but rather accidental deaths, suicides, and fights among friends and families where someone gets shot and killed. The “inconvenient fact” is you are more likely to kill yourself, your child or your husband than you are to kill a criminal trying to break into your home and attack you. Of course no one thinks he/she will shoot a friend or family member as an accident or during an argument or they wouldn’t buy the gun, but the facts speak plainly; people do end up killing friends and family members whether it be an accident or during a fight. Or an accident may happen when a child goes looking for Christmas presents and happens upon mom or dad’s gun that was hidden on the top shelf of the bedroom closet “well out of reach.”
The members of Loyola University’s
This quasi-anonymous letter is typical of the antigun crowd: long on unproven emotional assertions, short and selective on facts, and devoid of reasoning. As is usual with such diatribes, the authors seek to wave the bloody shirt of child victims, but note that “more children are killed by bathtub falls and cars than guns.”
