Gun Control and Violence

As a career law-enforcement officer and a life member of the National Rifle Assn., I was not surprised to read your latest ill-informed anti-gun editorial (“Police Story,” Aug. 24). Once again you are not even close to the truth. First you misstate the facts in regard to who in the National Assn. of Police Officers endorsed Bill Clinton. As with any union it was the elected officials of the union that endorsed Clinton, not the rank and file. NAPO did not poll members to see who they wanted to endorse for President. They took the usual pro-union Democratic stance.

Rank-and-file police officers are not fooled by the placebo of gun control as crime control. If you were to devote half the editorial space you devote to gun control on true crime control measures, such as mandatory sentences for the use of a gun in a crime and no plea bargaining for violent and repeat offenders, you might just do the public a true service. Like you said, politicians may want to take note.

DWIGHT D. VAN HORN

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Dept.