Don’t demonize gun owners
Regarding “Understanding gun violence” (Editorial, June 20): Contrary to your anti-gun, anti-Second Amendment and anti-law-abiding gun owner editorial, no taxpayer funds should be used to fund a research center whose research would automatically be antigun, as is the research of Garen Wintermute and the Center for Disease Control, which would be used to promote legislation which would further impinge on the right of law-abiding citizens in California to keep and bear arms. California presently has quite enough gun control and Gov. Jerry Brown should veto the $5 million budget request of state Sen. Lois Wolk. I disagree with your opinion that solid majorities of California voters support more gun control measures. Rather, I think that they wish to have laws presently on the books be enforced against the criminals who are causing the problems. In no other western state besides California do law-abiding citizens who are gun owners have to put up with the constant attacks by the state legislature on their individual right to keep and bear arms, as upheld by the Supreme Court in the Washington, D.C., and Chicago cases. These attacks must stop.
David Russell, Berkeley