Reader is not convinced by gun control arguments

To the editor:

In a July 5 letter, Mary Kemen campaigned for more gun control ('Our country is in need of gun reform”). She said for every justifiable gun death there are 78 suicides. This questionable figure has long been promulgated by an anti-gun medical group. Eliminating firearms won't halt many suicides. Deranged people will simply resort to other means.

She cited sweeping Australian gun controls enacted after a massacre. She said, 'Since 1996, there has been no mass killing incident in Australia.” That may be true, but Australian police officers tell their American brethren that disarming the public has led to quantum leaps in individual murders, assaults, robberies, rapes, etc. The criminal element knows unarmed citizens can't protect themselves.

England, Canada and Australia all have stricter gun controls than we do. This results from several centuries of British Commonwealth rule. England has never liked her subjects to be capable of challenging the regime. That once applied to us. Do the dates 1776 and 1812 ring any bells?

After we overthrew British tyranny, we enacted a Constitutional government enumerating individual rights such as freedom of speech, press, religion and the right of private citizens to keep and bear arms. They carry equal weight and reinforce each other.

On the same day, The Gazette printed three essays from members of their Writers Circle decrying the so-called 'militarization” of American law enforcement. I found it interesting that all three writers hail from Iowa City, often labeled 'the Berkeley of the Midwest.”

Dean Varner

Cedar Rapids