LETTER TO EDITOR: Open your eyes to save lives

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Some people are blinded by their ignorance and hatred of guns. I see that D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton is using the recent shootings in New York, Pennsylvania and Washington state as grounds to fight the reversal of gun bans in the District. I find it unbelievable that she and other liberals cannot see the logic that there are bad people in this world and no law is going to stop a maniac hell-bent on destruction.

The District has some of the strictest gun laws in the entire country, but does Mrs. Norton not know that it ranked fourth-highest in 2002 for murder rates, with 46.2 murders per 100,000 people? She probably doesn't know that two cities in Utah, Sandy and Orem, ranked near the very bottom with 1.1 murders per 100,000. Provo had 0.0 per 100,000. (Source: Morgan Quitno Press using data from FBI Crime in the United States 2002.) Utah has some of the most relaxed gun laws ever.

No one wants guns "off the street" and out of the hands of bad guys more than the National Rifle Association and law-abiding gun owners. However, the data show very clearly that guns are not the problem; people, specifically bad people, are the problem. Crime is rampant in the District because criminals know they have free reign (i.e., everyone is defenseless).

Liberals hate guns more than they hate criminals, and this hatred prevents them from seeing logic.

RUSSELL IVORY

Salt Lake City