By PAT KESTELLI applaud Lee Graves and his letter of Aug. 30, 2015 replying to Stephanie Nakhleh’s (corrected sp.) call for banning guns.
Since Lee used the statistics I would like to add a couple. First, ANY murder is too many; which is why the FBI statistic showing that,every year, gun owners thwart tens of thousands of violent crimes by either shooting the assailant or simply revealing the gun to perpetrators is important. The cannot be exactly determined because up to 90 percent of them are not to law enforcement to the FBI site. So, THOUSANDS of violent crimes including rape, assault, and murder are prevented BECAUSE of guns.
Statistic number 2 – 48 percent of gun murders are gang related. This is important because a gun ban would not significantly reduce the number of guns they own. That puts the amount of gun murders at about 5,000 per year for the ordinary populous, which again, is too many. Compared, however, to the tens of thousands of lives saved by guns, the idea of banning guns is not a logical solution.
We cannot help but be emotionally devastated when we see some of the gun crimes, especially against young children, but emotion is not the proper medium for decision making.
One last statistic; nearly 55 percent of people with violent intent that were shot (2013) were shot by and individual citizens and not police. It is not the of the police to my family, it is mine.
The last thing I will add to Mr. Grave’s letter is that, along with a mental health issue, we have an immorality issue. Too many people are just bad. Bad people must be stood up to by good people … armed better.
