Support both views on guns

Re: “Barking up wrong tree, as usual,” “City-dwellers don’t need guns,” letters, July 27. Both writers make excellent, valid points, and yet I couldn’t help think of the term “zero sum game” after reading them.

The former is absolutely correct in stating that we, as a society, need to provide facilities to house mentally ill people who would do themselves and others harm, just because they are mentally ill and incapable of caring for themselves and living peacefully among others. They are the victims of their illness as surely as the people they kill; it is our responsibility to protect them and others from themselves, with a goal of successfully treating them so that they can take their place in society.

The latter writer is equally correct in asking: What do city dwellers need with handguns? The first writer pointed to examples of mentally ill people killing others with knives. While we are not going to outlaw the ownership of knives, it points to the sole purpose of guns, which is to kill.

Defenders of gun ownership will say they need guns for self-defence; the very last thing this country needs is to start emulating our neighbours to the south.

These letters make excellent points. The truth is, they are both right, and we should be supporting both points of view, not one at the expense of the other. Lorraine Lindsay Victoria