•••
In a Readers Write contribution published Thursday, the writer, who works for the Center of the American Experiment, puts forward the false choice typical of persons who oppose any action on gun safety legislation ("The plan needs to actually work"). In his view, rather than enact legislation, we should do a better job of holding the perpetrators of gun violence accountable through our judicial system using the laws we already have; to do otherwise is to be just reacting emotionally. I beg to differ. If the staff of the Center of the American Experiment are truly interested in addressing the crisis of gun violence, and not just diverting attention away from gun safety legislation, they can do the public a service by identifying and reporting the names of judges they believe are responsible for the failings of our judicial system, so we can vote them off the bench and vote in better judges. I look forward to seeing their report before the next election.
Meantime, the Legislature can do what it can to address the problem posed by rising gun violence by passing universal background checks, red-flag laws, and yes, even an assault weapons ban. We don't have to choose between either legislative action that may at least reduce some gun violence or better responses by our criminal justice system once the violence has been done. Surely it is rational, not emotional, to say that the threat to public health and safety posed by the rise in gun violence merits both.
Bill Kaemmerer, Edina
•••
The Star Tribune has recently published two letters about gun control that essentially declare that applying existing law will be enough to curb gun violence. Both overlook glaring gaps in their arguments.
In a letter on Wednesday ("Find agreement. Enforce the law"), the letter writer ignores all the ways that the laws cited are negated. For example, one can claim that straw purchases are already illegal, but it isn't a straw purchase until the weapon is found in the possession of a prohibited individual. No crime is committed by buying five Glocks at one time. It's when the Glock is in the hands of a criminal and it's traced back to the purchase that the crime exists. Even then, the "gun show" loophole and the "private sale" loophole make the straw purchase harder to prosecute. In both of these cases, the seller has no obligation to check the background of the purchaser.