The Des Moines Register, Sunday, January 18, 1998, Page 7AA

OPINION/LETTERS

Repeal 1st Amendment, too?

    Deborah Fink (Jan. 11 letter) seems to think we give up some freedoms in order to enjoy others.  If we give it up, it's not a freedom.
    Could she tell us what freedom we will enjoy by giving up our freedom to possess guns?  Perhaps a safer environment?  Wrong.  Criminals will not give theirs up.  Only about 60 percent of murders are committed with firearms.   Next is cutting/stabbing instruments, and approximately 5 percent are committed with no weapon other than hands, fists, feet, etc.
    As far as accidents are concerned, water causes more than three times the deaths and motor vehicles kill three times as many people as firearms.  We would be safer if we banned water and motor vehicles.
    Gun bans are much more deadly -- Italy, Germany, Soviet Union, China.   We would therefore also be safer if we banned Fink's freedom of speech and The Register's freedom of the press, since it is such ideas that get people killed.
    - Gary Schachtner,
    402 Prairie, Guthrie Center.

The Des Moines Register, Sunday, January 18, 1998, Page 7AA
Fax 515-286-2511 * Email: letters@news.dmreg.com