Letter to the editor
To the editor:
I too felt the urge to comment about the recent activities of armed criminals in Lawrenceville. I was nodding along in agreement with your editorial (“Suburbia isn’t safe") until I came to that colossal non-sequitur that passed as a final paragraph:
“Until state and federal lawmakers come to their senses and pass meaningful measures to keep guns out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them…”
I’ve been accused over the years of speaking over the heads of my audience, so I’ll try to keep this REAL simple.
A law-abiding citizen is one who is aware of the laws and complies with them, even when they make his life inconvenient or unpleasant.
A criminal is one who is aware of the laws and violates them, especially when they make his life inconvenient or unpleasant.
Still with me here? Good.
Lawmakers pass laws; that’s what they do. Yes, they also rename streets and airports and declare holidays, but mostly they pass laws.
Now here’s the hard part, the part that gun-grabbers keep missing or ignoring. Enacting more gun laws, “stricter” gun laws, “more meaningful” gun laws doesn’t change criminals’ behavior. THEY DON’T OBEY LAWS! That’s why they’re called criminals. When another law goes into the books, carjackers and bank robbers do not turn in their guns and start looking for jobs as appliance salesmen.
If you’re trying to have government reduce the frequency of crime, lawMAKERS are not the most relevant part of government. The relevant parts are law ENFORCEMENT and COURTS. More and better cops, prosecutors, courtrooms, judges and parole boards who understand that felons in jail don’t victimize civilians, public defenders, prison cells, wardens, guards, probation officers.
To stick with your cliché about keeping guns out of certain hands: don’t focus on the guns; focus on the hands.
Lawmakers become relevant when law enforcement, courts, and prisons need money to improve THEIR part of the operation. They become relevant when they refuse to remove from office those officials who are returning criminals to our streets.
Equally important, lawmakers are relevant to one other aspect of crime. In places like New Jersey, they are the ones who have made it illegal to defend ourselves against criminals. The carjacker has a gun because he’s not bothered by its being illegal. The law-abiding victim is defenseless because he IS bothered by the fact that carrying a gun is illegal.
We do need to pressure lawmakers. We need to pressure them to fund the enforcement, court and penal systems. We need to pressure them to clean up the enforcement, court and penal systems. And we need to pressure them to rescind laws that put us, defenseless, at the mercy of the criminals. Every murder victim, every rape victim, every robbery or assault victim is testimony to the fact that neither laws nor the police can protect individuals from criminal attackers.
Terry Wintroub
Trafalgar Court