LETTERS: CARRYING GUN FOR SAFETY

To the editor:

I'd like to respond to the lead story April 28 about the concealed weapons bill. Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle and Gov. Mel Carnahan are very wrong in their opposition to it.

My wife and I were residents of Sedona, Ariz., a few years ago when the governor of that state signed the bill into law. Being senior citizens, we signed up for the required 16-hour classes, as did many of our friends. We gladly submitted to background checks, fingerprinting and the two-day classes. These classes, which were held throughout the state, were filled to capacity during the first few months after the bill became law. About 20 percent of our group were women.

Essentially, the gist of the training was when it is justified or not to use deadly force in the protection of self and others, firearms familiarization and actual firing on the range. We have always owned firearms and had a long interest in the shooting sports but found the classes very interesting.

Curiously, after receiving our permits to carry a concealed weapon, we almost never did, because we lived in a small town with little crime. But shortly afterward, during a hospital stay in Phoenix, I found it very comforting that after visiting hours my wife had the legal ability and means to protect herself when going to our car in a dark parking lot and a drive to her motel, especially after many horror stories in the Phoenix paper of women who were accosted in such situations.

The fears of the hand-wringers that armed conflicts would erupt have proved groundless, because the permitees are law-abiding people interested only in having the means to protect themselves. We have not heard of it happening even once. But it is a proven fact that, in the states where responsible people have that right, crime has been markedly reduced. A government that does not trust its law-abiding citizens to carry arms cannot itself be trusted.

BILL HARWELL

Jackson