Mailbag: Commentary on guns was way off target

Re. “Commentary: It’s time to arm school personnel,’ Jan. 10: Twenty-seven people dead from gunshots. Twenty were children ages 6 to 7, all of whom had multiple shots to the head. One 6-year-old was hit 11 times, yet writer Chuck Cassity wants more guns in schools. He says the calls for regulation are “hysterical pleadings” that are “lamentable.”

Those hysterical pleadings, sir, are the cries from the parents who had to identify their dead child through photos, rather than subject them to the horror of seeing their own beloved and innocent child in barely recognizable condition.

Nowhere in Cassity’s solution of arming teachers does he mention that maybe, just maybe, large clips or background checks or closing gun show loopholes are reasonable steps to help stop the carnage without “prying” the guns out of the hands of hunters, target shooters or ordinary people exercising the right to own a gun and use it for self defense.

Recently a man fired 50 rounds into the air at Fashion Island; he easily could have shot 50 rounds into shoppers. Thankfully, that didn’t happen, or Cassity would be calling for armed kiosk workers. Cassity, I own a gun, but I also own some common sense, and common sense tells me that reasonable restrictions and fewer guns are the better option.

Gregg Peterson

Newport Beach

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Rights not being denied

Chuck Cassity has finally done it. He has exceeded even his high threshold of right-wing nonsense in his pitch to arm our teachers. His commentary is filled with bizarre speculation, e.g, that Sandy Hook Elementary School was chosen for the mass killing because it was in a gun-free zone; that the mentally unbalanced shooter would have selected a different site, had he known that there might be an armed citizen at the school. Also false premises, e.g., that “gun-hating loons” are trying to deny their fellow citizens of their Constitutional rights.

Other than for a small handful of gun control advocates, no one is trying to deny citizens who are neither felons nor mentally unbalanced their right to own firearms for purposes of hunting, recreational target shooting and self defense. The effort is to prohibit the ownership of a firearm the sole purpose of which is to kill as many people as possible as quickly as possible, i.e., a semi-automatic weapon with a more-than-10-round clip or magazine. How can even Cassity be against that, unless he believes that ordinary citizens must be prepared to fight in the streets against foreign invaders or rogue government forces (and he may believe that)?

Paul F. Marx

Newport Beach

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More on the crows

Re. “Commentary: How to control those annoying crows,” Dec. 27: My husband is the kindest, gentlest man I know. He is also devoted to protecting his home and family. We enjoy the owls and hawks that visit our trees and the small birds that come to bathe in our pond and nest in our eaves.

That’s why it was painful for me to read the furious comments a few people made in response to Tom Egan’s letter describing how he scared away a hundred-or-so crows that had taken over our yard. They fouled our home with their droppings and screamed from sunup to sundown, scaring away the finches, the hummingbirds and the house sparrows, and tormented us daily.

The crows invaded in force and refused to leave. Finally, Tom slung a handful of pellets into the trees where the crows roosted. Not a feather or leaf fell, but the noise of the pellets rattling in the leaves disturbed the invaders and they flew away. After a few repetitions, the crows tired of the game and did not return.

Generously wanting to share his hazing technique with others who contend with huge numbers of crows, Tom wrote a letter to the Daily Pilot describing his success in ridding our home of the pests without harming them. For this, he has been the target of angry letters, entirely undeserved. I do hope that in the future those who wrote them will attend to the facts, not make up things, and consider the effect of their words.

Eleanor Egan

Costa Mesa