Letters to the Editors

When will we see need for effective gun control?

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 1, 2000

Re: Seventh-grader shoots, kills Lake Worth teacher, May 27.

Twenty-five years ago, had I owned a gun I would have shot six men who were vandalizing my car as I watched from my window. Was I insane? Probably, momentarily. My rage was simply uncontrolled. Now, I'm very glad I did not have a gun because the laws in New York City made it too difficult for me to get one legally. People with tempers should not have access to guns.

Although I've been aware of the lack of gun control in Florida, living here and seeing a total lack of safeguards for your citizens has me believing that either the politicians do not care what the people want, or else the people of Florida do not care about themselves or each other. It's a sad commentary either way.

Norman Cousins must have been visiting Florida when he said, "Guns have a way of materializing more readily than the commodities that sustain life."

What will it take for you to wake up and pass an effective gun-control law?
-- Judith Dunaieff, Seminole

When will we learn?

Re: Seventh-grader shoots, kills Lake Worth teacher, May 27.

How many more towns? How many more schools? How many more parents are going to suffer the tragic loss we all suffer when a child dies? Are the NRA-minded people deaf? Are the violent movie-minded people dumb? Are the parents who buy violent video games for their children numb?

How many more of the best and brightest must we watch die before we take the guns out of our homes? Will you wait until it is your child dead on the street? Until it is your flesh and blood lying in a pool of red in the school hall? Until they pry the gun from your child's murdering, cold, dead hands?

Is that soon enough?
-- Norman A. Peterson, Clearwater

Guns make killing too easy

Re: gun control.

A few weeks ago, two men robbed a pizza store. This story had a strange twist. One of the men shot the manager, then held a gun to a girl's head and pulled the trigger. When the gun refused to fire, the robbers left.

This, for me, speaks volumes about the gun issue. There were other ways of dispatching the victim -- a knife, any heavy object -- but when the gun failed to work, the gunman simply didn't bother. This underscores the entire liberal argument that guns themselves are the problem. If the gun had fired, there would have been one more dead person on the planet. Since it didn't, she lived. If the gun hadn't been available, the net effect would have been the same. The robbery would have been committed without the benefit of a gun and the likelihood of the victims surviving would have been dramatically increased.

It's almost as if the sheer convenience of murder with a firearm drives the perpetrator to use it. Take away the convenience and it's like taking away the rationale for the murder itself.

You can't ignore the fact that in countries where guns aren't readily available, the murder rate is reduced a hundredfold. Surely the inhabitants of these nations feel the same murderous impulses. Surely life is as difficult and frustrating there. They watch the same brutal movies as Americans do.

It would seem that when the gun isn't easily come by, the opportunity to act on a murderous impulse is largely removed.

As for constitutional protection, maybe it's time for another amendment. The problem is severe enough.
-- Pete Edwards, Seminole

A selective concern for life

Re: New pools now must have safety device, May 26.

Gov. Jeb Bush is more than willing to sign a bill that mandates pool safety barriers to prevent small children from drowning. He is even willing to sign a bill preventing partial-birth abortions, which some say simply kills children.

However, the kind of protection that our governor and Legislature will extend to our most at-risk residents depends, not on the degree of risk, but rather on how the deaths occur.

Our governor and Legislature step up to the plate to prevent death from drowning and abortion. However, if death occurs from gunfire, they look the other way. I think it's called hypocrisy.
-- Arthur C. Hayhoe, Zephyrhills

Don't blame the gun

A student, sent home for disrupting class by throwing water balloons, returns and fatally shoots a teacher with a semiautomatic pistol. All this just nine minutes before the bell that will close out this school year!

An A and B student, perfect attendance, no problems, not a troublemaker -- is he really a candidate for being sent home on the last day of school? Be that as it may, that caliber of student can't be to blame, it must be the gun's fault!

This kid couldn't accept his punishment even though school was being let out for the summer. "Stay cool! Go home and the whole incident will be forgotten." "No Way! I've got to strike back." That seems to be the mind-set.

Gov. Jeb Bush hit the nail on the head. He said "these acts mirror the broader issue of the breakdown of values that should bind our communities -- principally the respect for human life."

This doesn't have anything to do with the gun. It does have to do with a young mind that has not been taught the basic values which should govern all our lives. His values structure evidently did not contain a respect for authority nor a respect for human life. And that's where we are falling down.

Parents have to make sure they are inculcating an all-inclusive values system in the parenting process. And when the earliest evidences of non-conformity to those values show up, the "reward or punishment" factor comes into play -- by an authority figure, the parent.

We should not be blaming the gun! We spend a lot of time and money on playing the blame game and talking about suing the gun manufacturer. Why don't we spend that time and money looking for the real culprit? It's either that or we start giving our underpaid teachers combat pay.
-- William P. Rupert, Beverly Hills

We must learn to deal with firearms

In the wake of random tragedies involving firearms perpetrated by demented teens or determined terrorists, I see the call from some in political power to create more rules, laws or taxes on the gun owners and businesses of our country. I certainly object to any further complications for our law-abiding citizens resulting from the actions of those who have broken our laws.

I saw no lawbreakers at the firing range today, only recreational shooters, including a couple in their 70s, practicing their marksmanship on inanimate targets. In this increasingly violent society, I was also practicing for self-defense.

It is interesting to note that four years ago I never thought of a need to own firearms, even though I had grown up around them. My mind was shifted by the assaults I saw at the congressional and administrative levels on our Second Amendment guarantee of the populace to keep and bear arms. Like many of my fellow citizens, I purchased a handgun for personal protection soon after the Clinton administration began its rhetoric about the dangers we pose to ourselves by being armed. I took safety courses, purchased a quick-opening gun safe that I mounted to my bed frame, obtained a license to carry concealed weapons and joined the National Rifle Association, becoming a life member.

Having worked with inmates at our county jail, I know that criminals are basically opportunistic cowards whose set of values would be appalling to an ordinary person, and they prefer easy victims to armed ones. I support the police but know their limitations. In my city the response time to a 911 call is around three minutes, and for that three minutes I am responsible for the health and safety of myself and my loved ones in the event of a criminal attack.

Since we cannot uninvent firearms, we must all learn to deal with them. I understand the awesome responsibility that comes with owning a firearm. My philosophy about weapons is simple: I hope never to have need of one, but should that need arise, I will never need anything more desperately in my life! I ask that we not support any positions to remove that option from me or restrict it any further than it already is.

Our founding fathers did not make a mistake by including the Second Amendment. Truly free people know that firearms ownership is a right, not a wrong.
-- Doug Hayes, Madeira Beach

Sentence for affair was excessive

Re: 71 years to punish man's affair with teen, May 27.

The prosecutors and the judge need to retire. They are obviously totally out of touch with what is fair and just. In refusing to consider the pleas of the victim and her family, they have victimized them again.

I agree it is not appropriate or legal for a 25-year-old man and a 13-year-old girl to have an intimate relationship, but this girl was not raped, and the relationship was consensual. We have too many laws trying to govern human behavior and these mandatory sentences are ridiculous.

When teacher Mary Kay Latourneau had an affair with her 13-year-old student, she was initially given six months in jail. In many other countries in this world it is not unusual for girls to be married off to older men as soon as they reach puberty. I'm not saying I agree with this. I don't. My husband and I are the same age, and I think that works best. However, a 71-year sentence is totally out of line, and I believe Gisi was discriminated against because he is a man. This is not justice, and the sentence should definitely be overturned on appeal.
S. Smith, Dunedin

Re: 71 years to punish man's affair with teen.

What Michael S. Gisi did was low, despicable and disgusting. But is the sentence of 71 years overkill? Murderers often do not get sentenced to that amount of time. Drug dealers responsible for deaths serve less time. It is difficult for me to see this sentence fitting the crime.
-- Joan Byrd, Treasure Island

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