Lawful gun ownership helps deter crime

In her Jan. 25 letter to the editor, Myrna Loehrlein, president of the League of Women Voters of Iowa, argues that guns pose unnecessary health risks and implicitly suggests that society is safer with fewer (or no) guns, naively claiming that “gunshot health risks are 100 percent preventable.” Oh, puh-leeze. She must believe in the perfectibility of man.

She would do well to read some of the writings by John Lott, whose scholarly research on gun ownership, regulation and crime repeatedly has found that lawful gun ownership is inversely associated with gun crimes. For example, rural areas have the highest gun ownership rates and the lowest crime rates. Further, research spanning decades repeatedly shows that criminals testify they prefer victims who are unarmed and admit that they worry more about armed would-be victims than about police.

Consider: When is the last time you read of a robbery or a shooting at a convenience store where the owner prohibits registered firearm owners? And when was the last time you read of a robbery or a shooting at a gun show, where just about everybody present is “packing heat?”

Case closed.

Rich Zeis

Walker