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Readers join the debate over gun laws
Editor’s note: Few subjects have produced the level of response from our readers created by the debate over guns. In the Jan. 11-Jon.
24 issue of Reporter Newspapers, Associate Editor Dan Whisenhunt offered his opinion. In our Jan. 25-Feb. 7 issue, reader Price R. Pot
ter responded in a letter to the editor. His letter produced a flurry of replies, including these.
To the editor:
The recent letter by Mr. Potter, which addressed a prior
opinion article on gun control, was a good example of mak
ing a point by name-calling and attacking the intelligence and
emotional balance of someone with whom we disagree.
Mr. Potter presumes to know what is in Mr. Whisenhunt’s
mind and emotions. He calls him “scared, a squeamish pro
gressive, weak-willed liberal, of selective and highly irrational
emotion who should cry himself to sleep every night worry
ing his pretty little head..., one for whom lawful gun owner
ship is cause for hysteria, hand-wringing and bed wetting, ill-
informed, people like this, with a need to feel good.”
All this is name-calling and inappropriate, but an increas
ingly common strategy. Belittling your opponent to make
yourself look better is the approach. Never mind that your
opponent may have good reasons for his opinion. Respect for
a person’s right to verbalize his opinion is not important.
Actually, Mr. Potters argument about firearms is accu
rate. Cars cause thousands of times more fatalities each year
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
E-mail letters to editor@reporternewspapers.net
than firearms. Citizens do have a constitutional right to own
firearms and to use them for our own protection. Increasing
numbers of us citizens are exercising our right to own firearms
and know how to use them. We understand that criminals will
obtain and use firearms, no matter what the law is. Criminals
already show disregard for the law by the very act of shooting
someone, which is illegal. Outlawing guns will not change the
behavior of evil people, and our government could not possi
bly remove every firearm from the face of the earth.
Mr. Potter would have made a much better case by just stat
ing the facts and skipping the name-calling.
Respectfully,
Faye Sklar
To the editor:
Price R. Potter’s editorial regarding the 2nd amendment
is a knee-jerk, emotional reaction similar to the criticism he
used to deride Mr. Whisenhunt’s editorial. He uses name- call
ing (“squeamish progressives” and “weak-willed liberals”) and
false logic to argue for gun rights.
By definition our freedoms and liberties (the root word of
liberal) end when they affect another’s freedom. Where your
right infringes upon another’s is where your privilege ceases
to exist.
One’s right to feel safe by carrying a firearm is just as valid
as one’s right to feel safe by living in a world free of fire arms.
One just happens to be written in the Constitution, a chosen
selection of 18th century natural rights put forth by Enlight
enment thinkers and not a comprehensive list.
A right to bear arms in 1791 made sense, but in the 21st
century its relevance ought to be debated since the context
has changed.
The equivocation of the dangers of driving with the dangers of
firearms is invalid as well. Cars are necessary parts of our existence
and in no way could have been included in our Constitution be
cause they did not exist. I am confident that if an amendment
was proposed that we had a right to drive cars that it would pass
without issue. There are dangers from cars, but without them our
economy would collapse.
Cars are intended for transportation and have the secondary
effect of accidents. Guns are created to shoot things. That is the
primary purpose. Ladders are intended to raise people up. Be
cause someone dies on one does not make it equal to a gun, and
the same for a car. Equating something intended to cause death
with something intended to move people and goods is logically
inaccurate at best and manipulative at worst.
Potter’s historical examples are also problematic - they
only focus on specific incidences of totalitarian regimes
and government-led genocides.
While tragic, he ignores all history prior to 20th centu
ry and all the peaceful, successful countries that currently
have weapon bans. England, Japan, and most of Scandina
via represent current and historical examples of industrial
ized nations that are peace and freedom-loving while hav
ing significantly lower rates of gun violence, incarceration,
and non-accidental homicide.
Potter also ignores the economic barriers many of those
oppressed peoples faced when attempting to purchase
weapons given that nearly all were developing nations pri
or to their own Industrial Revolutions - guns were scarce
and cost prohibitive for the agrarian common folk.
In addition, he seems to forget that in the event of pro
gressive-led violent overthrow of democracy, any weapon
one is able to procure legally today (including assault ri
fles) would not stand up against the modern weaponry of
a 21st century United States military force or almost any
nation state.
In all the examples Potter provided the governments had
sophisticated weaponry to which a humble commoner’s mus
ket would stand no chance. When the Bill of Rights was rat
ified, the difference in weapons between the British or U.S.
military and a plebeian farmer was negligible.
Accusations of irrationality by Price Potter hit surprising
ly close to home given his unwillingness to examine the other
side of the issue while declaring opposing arguments nothing
more than the “whining of liberal wussies.” I am confident af
ter Price Potter’s paranoia subsides that he may be able to en
gage in civil discourse based on facts and logical argument.
Just because all of our news outlets refuse to be civil it does
not mean that we cannot be.
Eric Heintz
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To the editor:
Price Potter’s extreme and bizarre arguments presented in
the last issue of this newspaper are a frustrating example of
why meaningful controls on guns and gun ownership in this
country are so hard to achieve in the face of obvious and over
whelming evidence that the costs of the status quo exceed any
benefits derived by multiple fold.
The benefits cited by Mr. Price (defense of home and the
unspecified fear of some theoretical tyrannical government)
are typical of the genre, and are somewhere between dubious
and miniscule. The costs are huge and occur every single day
8 | FEB. 8 —FEB. 21,2013 | www.ReporterNewspapers.net
in terms of lives needlessly destroyed or snuffed out by gun vi
olence, gun accidents, suicide and over-zealous self-defense.
Our elected representatives (Mr. Gingrey, Mr. Lindsey,
and Mr. Hill in my particular case) have proven spineless
and lacking in leadership on this issue as they pander for
special interest votes and hope to avoid the ire of the NRA.
Surely we can do better than this.
Indeed, according to Mr. Price, those who ignore history
are doomed to repeat it: more than 82 times each and every
day from gun deaths alone.
Scott Satterwhite
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