Letters

THE U.S. UNDER THE GUN

"Let Charlton Heston and his disciples each be allowed one single-shot, muzzle-loading flintlock musket." SHEP SCHWARTZ Deep River, Conn.

With Charlton Heston as its newly elected president [SPECIAL REPORT, July 6], the National Rifle Association hopes to appeal to mainstream America. The plan may backfire. Even an actor who has portrayed Moses can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. And though Heston's celebrity attracts media attention, the hateful sentiments conveyed by that golden voice will more likely guarantee a continuing decline in N.R.A. membership. Heston's outspoken and controversial reflections may win the applause of the right wing, but his inflammatory rhetoric is repugnant to most Americans, including real sportsmen. KATHLEEN GREGG Pearl River, N.Y.

I take strong exception to your portrayal of firearms as "murderous little fixtures." One such fixture kept my wife from being raped several years ago. And the claim that firearms are a cause of the U.S.'s high violence rate is misinformed. Some countries with firearms ownership comparable to that of the U.S. have low crime rates, while nations with strict gun control can end up with high crime statistics. The fact is that income, racial tensions and education, among myriad other factors, contribute far more to crime than the availability of firearms. DAVID O. HUNT Sandusky, Ohio

By and large, I wasn't unhappy with your piece on my election as president of the N.R.A., though it was laced with wry innuendo. I do, however, object to your coverage of my civil rights activities, which your writer reduced to a bare minimum. I played an important role in Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1963 March on Washington as the leader and chief organizer of the scores of actors who attended. Some months earlier, as president of the Screen Actors Guild, at Dr. King's request, I persuaded the leadership of one of the technical unions (IATSE) to meet with him, after explaining that IATSE not only barred blacks from membership but also accepted only the sons of its members into the union. I merely knocked on the door. Dr. King persuaded or shamed IATSE into opening its membership, an incredible feat. He was an incredible man. To walk behind him was one of the most memorable experiences of my life, and I'm very proud to have been the first major actor to speak out on civil rights, against all advice in this town. CHARLTON HESTON Beverly Hills, Calif.

Heston may fancy himself an American eagle, but he's really just a hypocritical chicken hawk. LITZI TREVINO HARTLEY Naperville, Ill.

Re carrying a gun: I would rather be tried by 12 jurors than carried out by six pallbearers. Don't give me victims' rights; give me self-defense rights. GLENN P. ALLEN Sacramento, Calif.

If 40% of American households have guns, it is a signal that people have given up on beating violent crime through conventional means. But that does not justify making guns more easily available. Owning a hunting rifle, securely storing it in separate pieces well away from children and using it only to shoot a yearly quota of deer is quite different from carrying a loaded 9-mm pistol in a shoulder holster for the drive to work. Parents who introduce their children to guns may first want to take them down to the morgue and show them the bullet-riddled body of the latest gunfire victim. CLAES NORELL London

I own four handguns, which I fire regularly at a range. I'm not an anti-gun wimp. In France there are stringent rules about gun ownership. France has urban crime, terrorist attacks and underprivileged minorities. Yet people here are not offing one another with guns at an alarming rate, and that's probably because it's not easy to get your hands on one. The n.r.a. and other mindless "patriotic" organizations that encourage the widespread proliferation of firearms are prime contributors to the U.S.'s shocking death toll. It would appear that Heston, who has run out of Saracens and Egyptians to slaughter, is leading the charge against his fellow Americans. JACK ROBINSON Paris

Statistics on gun deaths in the U.S. show that there are more shootings in which the victim and shooter know each other than shootings by an unknown assailant. Yet people continue to think that keeping guns in their homes makes them safer. That mentality scares me far more than the perceived threat of crime ever will. It seems that no matter how many innocents die, no matter how many assassinations tear us apart, we're never going to learn. MARY LOU SAHD Landisville, Pa.

If an amendment to the Constitution is the root of the problem, then change it. After all, how many people drive an automobile by looking in the rearview mirror instead of at what lies ahead? With all that America has taught the world, perhaps it can still learn too. DOUG MCLEOD Victoria, B.C.

Kids have had access to guns in America since the Mayflower, and for hundreds of years that was not a problem. What has changed to create the senseless, willful disregard of people and property? Whether we have grown dependent on drugs or handouts, individual responsibility is going the way of dinosaurs, and it's taking America with it. ALAN HILLS Los Gatos, Calif.

Where is the N.R.A.'s courage of its convictions? No guns were allowed at its recent Philadelphia convention! Somehow it is O.K. for members to carry weapons on streets and in malls but not at the convention. What does that say about N.R.A. members? MARTHA FINK Carmel Valley, Calif.

MORE ABOUT CONCEALED WEAPONS

While your piece "Should You Carry a Gun?" [SPECIAL REPORT, July 6] was generally favorable toward my new book, More Guns, Less Crime, it contained seriously misleading statements. Despite accusations by some critics, my study on the effect that carrying concealed weapons has on crime absolutely did not ignore "counties that had no reported murders or assaults for a given year." In contrast to the tiny samples in previous work by others, I used data on all the counties in the U.S. that were available when I did the study on the years from 1977 to 1994.

It is likewise false that I did "not account for fluctuating factors like poverty levels and police techniques." Among the many factors I included in the analysis were poverty, income, unemployment, arrest and conviction rates, the number of police officers and police expenditures per capita, as well as the impact that the prevention of less serious crimes has on more serious ones. JOHN R. LOTT JR. John M. Olin Law and Economics Fellow University of Chicago Chicago

The title of your story on concealed weapons asked, "Should You Carry a Gun?" My response is, "Do you want to?" Sensibly, most Americans don't, and they don't want the stranger in the next car to have one either. The next major legislative effort must be to stop the flow of guns from states with weak gun laws to states with strong ones. Florida, Georgia and Mississippi are the leading gun suppliers and the source of a large web of interstate gun runners. CHARLES E. SCHUMER U.S. Representative Ninth District, New York Washington

CHILLING PHOTOGRAPHS

The pictures you published of gun owners outraged and upset me so much I had to take a tranquilizer [SPECIAL REPORT, July 6]. Especially bothersome was the photograph of Mike taken at a Dallas gun store. He is shown with his baby daughter in his right arm and a gun in his left hand, seemingly pointed at her! Undoubtedly she will grow up seeing this ghastly photo framed and in a place of distinction in her family's home. And then there's Sarah Dobbins, shotgun owner at age 10 thanks to a gift from Santa Claus! And we wonder what is happening to our children? TINA BUCKLIN Clinton Corners, N.Y.

NO DOUBLE TAXATION

Your item on my effort that blocked an increase in death taxes from 55% to 60% [PERSONAL TIME: YOUR MONEY, July 6] failed to include my point of view that the estate, or death, tax is unfair and should be abolished altogether. It is wrong to tax people on their work, savings and investment throughout life and then double-tax them and their families when they die. Rich or poor, no one should have to visit the funeral parlor and the irs on the same day. Also, you imply that by allowing some Americans to keep more of their money, it somehow "costs" the Treasury an amount the rest of us will be forced to make up, as if by keeping more of their own earnings, the wealthy are actually stealing from us! This notion is flatly incorrect and politically slanted. BILL ARCHER U.S. Representative Seventh District, Texas Washington

FAITH VS. GOOD WORKS

Your article on the Lutheran and Catholic agreement on the doctrine of justification [RELIGION, July 6] really got me going. I have long been puzzled by the sheer existence of the controversy of justification, the state of being right with God and whether it is based on good works or on faith alone. The argument can be resolved by common sense. Whereas faith and good works are somewhat different, they are not ultimately philosophically distinguishable. Faith is a good work. God's works are faith in motion.

Jesus enthroned those who did good works. The Good Samaritan and the widow who gave her last mite were most praiseworthy. Not a single Protestant would admit to having "faith" and to being "saved" while having zero desire to engage in good works. The grace of faith always, always entails good works. To proclaim "Salvation by faith alone!" is to talk about something that has never existed and never will. PETER J. DAWSON Magnolia, N.J.

IT'S A BIRD! IT'S A DINOSAUR!

I have often wondered why the modern mind has no trouble accepting the most bizarre suggestions from mainstream science, such as the conclusion that birds are descended from dinosaurs [SCIENCE, July 6]. How about those chunky chicken dinosaurs crashing about with feathered arms akimbo until...they became airborne! Just wait a few million years, and you'll have birds. FAY KNIGHT Saratoga, Calif.

The report that birds probably evolved from dinosaurs should have run under the heading of science fiction. RALPH B. KRAINIK Baraboo, Wis.