Letters

From the January 1994 issue

(Page 3 of 3)

Grant Jones
Captain Cook, HI

Alan Bock's "Ambush at Ruby Ridge" was an interesting and disturbing article. Unfortunately, Mr. Bock's credibility is weakened when he talks of U.S. Marshals carrying "silenced 9-mm M-16 machine guns with laser scopes." While this certainly sounds menacing, there is no such weapon. The M-16 rifle (a selector switch allows it to be fired as either a semi-automatic or an automatic) fires a 5.56-mm round.

Christopher M. Schnaubelt
San Luis Obispo, CA

Hawks and Doves

Daniel D. Polsby's article on the effects of gun control ("Equal Protection," Oct.) is one of the most thought-provoking and accurate pieces on the subject this life-long gun owner has ever read. Here in New Jersey we have arguably the strictest gun-control laws in the nation, yet virtually no one claims that these laws have made life any safer.

The recent violence against foreign tourists in Florida underscores Mr. Pols-by's main point. Florida residents enjoy permissive concealed-carry laws; tourists, on the other hand, are almost always unarmed. The bad guys naturally avoid high-risk encounters with Florida residents (who might shoot back) in favor of preying on unarmed tourists.

I predict that very shortly some enterprising Florida entrepreneur will start providing an armed escort service to usher foreign tourists from the danger zone around airports. This will bring the predictable cries of "vigilantism" from the media, but it will restore the "equilibrium of hawks" that Mr. Polsby (correctly) assumes will solve the problem.

George Worthington
Cranford, NJ

A common practice of citizen gun toting would change the face of law enforcement. Undercover police work, for instance, would become even more dangerous, because no officer would know if a drawn gun was friendly or not. There would be a number of "unfortunate incidents." Likewise, I wonder what the consequences of a confrontation between an honest citizen and an armed miscreant would look like to a police officer making his report or a judge determining justifiable homicide.

Though I agree with Polsby that the eventual effect of an armed citizenry would be a lessening of crime, initially killings would be rampant, as criminals challenged citizens for the right to the streets. In a fully armed society, the rush among criminals (who may organize in self-preservation) will be to gather the greater number of weapons and ammunition as quickly as possible. At first flush this could turn decidedly nasty.

Polsby's example of the nonviolence of the '49ers is a good one, but we must also remember that another reason for the lack of gold-rush gunplay was citizen action (vigilantes). Hangtown, California, during the first years of the gold rush made short work of those who defied the peace, thus giving the town its name for a short time (before it became the more peaceable town of Placerville). Dodge City, Kansas, during the 1870s and 1880s is remembered as a generally lawless town (though the shootings were not so numerous as fiction would have us believe). But its greater period of gunplay was when citizens tried hanging up the six-shooters and turning law-enforcement duties over to marshals.

On the whole, however, Polsby has given me reason to believe that our crime-laden days are reversible. If nothing else, the saga of the recapturing of America under a Polsby scenario would make great TV fodder for some future, gentler generation.

Patrick M. Burke
River Ridge, CA

Mr. Polsby replies: Patrick Burke's fears of shootouts for control of the streets seem far-fetched. An armed citizenry makes public predation more dangerous and costly for criminals. On the margin, criminals should therefore change their behavior so as to avoid that cost. Stealth should become relatively more valuable to criminals than firepower. Overall crime rates probably would not be affected, alas, but the mix of crimes, and where they would be committed, probably would be.

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