A Provocative Thought Experiment On Guns

This is about Philadelphia, where the appropriately-named Mayor Nutter insists on passing and enforcing local restrictions against law-abiding gun owners that violate Pennsylvania's state preemption statute.

Letters: A PROVOCATIVE THOUGHT EXPERIMENT ON GUNS
Philadelphia Daily News

ABOUT 90 percent of the people shot in the city last year were African-American. While figures are unavailable, it is assumed by most that close to 100 percent of the perpetrators of these shootings were African-American.

Almost all the firearms used in these shootings were obtained, possessed and carried illegally by those who perpetrated the shootings. If, as is constantly claimed, we MUST DO SOMETHING to stop this violence, then why not ban African-American residents of the city from owning handguns?

The answer is that that is patently unfair and discriminatory. To judge an entire group as a problem and punish all members of that group, irrespective of their individual actions, is unconscionable.

Yet, it's deemed perfectly acceptable to discriminate against one particular group - gun owners.

Let's just tell the truth. The instant Mayor Nutter gets the right to pass gun laws for Philly, it will become a practical impossibility to own a handgun or any other weapon the city deems "inappropriate."

I've done nothing wrong, but my rights are to be removed step-by-step because others - entirely outside the law - are using guns feloniously. How is this any less outrageous a suggestion than that black people shouldn't be allowed to have guns?

J.F. Wolfington, Philadelphia

Couldn't have said it any better.