LETTERS: CRUCIAL PREMISES UNDERLIE PROP B

To the editor:

Proposition B, the right of law-abiding citizens of Missouri to carry concealed weapons, will come to a vote April 6. It is a very important issue for each of us to understand, because it is a life-and-death issue.

In my opinion, this critical proposition hinges on voters' understanding the three crucial premises that underlie its need, regardless of the outcome of the election:

1. The bad guys will always have access to concealed weapons, regardless of licensing or training requirements. After all, this is what makes them bad guys in the first place. They are all cowards who only attack when they have the upper hand afforded to them by an unarmed citizenry.

2. The police cannot be everywhere at any given moment, by their own admission, to be able to protect the average citizen from the bad guys. Citizens need to be able to have the capability of preventing their own victimhood if and when confronted.

3. It is the very citizens who need the protection the most -- that is, the residents of less-affluent neighborhoods -- who will suffer disproportionately should this ballot issue fail. After all, these are the folks upon whom the bad guys seem to prey the heaviest.

We must ask ourselves why is it, then, that our politicians are so insistent on their constituent base remaining disarmed in the face of the very lawlessness they themselves have created with their law enforcement of existing gun laws and wimpy sentencing of weapons-related criminal convictions? Is it to cover their obvious failures in this regard?

We must ask ourselves why is it, then, that with 43 states in this country already allowing some degree or another of concealed-carry, that suddenly Missourians are the only people in America that our politicians have determined to be incapable of proper adherence to concealed-carry laws? For example, are we somehow that much different than the law-abiding citizens of Florida and Texas and Indiana who are legally armed?

Finally, we must ask ourselves why is it, then, that the politicians have determined that only the more affluent in this state have the right of self-protection? I ask why the less fortunate law-abiding citizens of our society are being herded off by people like St. Louis Mayor Harmon and Post-Dispatch columnist Gregory Freeman into thinking that the present system of self-protection is actually working for them? In what low regard they most hold these people's intellect.

Proposition B is the best plan available to return the right of self-protection to the citizens of Missouri. The politicians have had their try. Their record of failure is published daily in newspapers.

At long last, we have before us the mechanism to legally protect our families and ourselves. I urge everyone to seize this moment to take back our homes, our neighborhoods and our lives.

Please vote yes on Proposition B.

R. SCOTT MATTHEWS JR.

Sikeston