All Fired Up Over Guns

Congratulations to The Times and to staff writer Dean for the article about ordinary citizens who choose to violate the law by carrying concealed firearms because they fear violent crime.

The objectivity of Dean’s piece clearly contrasts the reasonable position of the anonymous law violators and the city and county authorities’ mindless distrust of the law-abiding public. Los Angeles police spokesman Cmdr. William Booth calls citizens who carry concealed weapons irrational, but as Dean’s article makes clear, it is the Los Angeles Police Commission’s policy of zero permits allowing citizens to carry concealed weapons that is irrational.

City Atty. James K. Hahn doubts “that many people are that proficient” in using a handgun for self-defense, but as Dean’s interview with Arthur Kassel of the Beverly Hills Gun Club suggests, the nurses, brokers, clerks, accountants, attorneys, mechanics, engineers and doctors who carry concealed weapons probably practice more than the average police officer whose qualification course can easily be passed by anyone with minimum marksmanship skills.

But what really gives the lie to the official stance represented by Booth and Hahn, that somehow the streets are made more dangerous by otherwise lawful citizens carrying concealed firearms, is that only 361 persons were prosecuted for the crime of carrying without a permit in 1987 and more than half of those were habitual offenders. Only 150 persons out of tens of thousands even came to the attention of the courts. Why? Because these tens of thousands of armed citizens pose no danger whatsoever to the public safety.

In fact, despite the unfounded skepticism of City Atty. Hahn, the opposite is the case. These citizens--and others who predatory criminals fear might be armed--are made safer by their violation of an unreasonable, probably unconstitutional law.

LEE WARREN SMITH

Culver City