More gun registration won’t stop crime in D.C.

Re: “Police lose track of thousands of guns,” July 7

For a city that blames its high murder rate on guns, it does not surprise me that D.C. cannot keep track of the guns that are already registered. The city’s attempt to record every gun so it can help connect them to crimes has already failed.

Under a proposed law, D.C. gun owners will have to register their guns and submit to ballistics testing.  But how exactly will this help?  If Police Chief Cathy Lanier can’t even find the guns that are already registered, what makes her think that registering more will help solve crimes?

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I sure hope D.C. police can get their act together.  But judging by the fact that you can only legally own a gun purchased in D.C. — and there are no gun stores there —  I doubt there will be a mad rush to the courthouse.

The real crime here is that Mayor Adrian Fenty and Chief Lanier treat their citizens like criminals with no repercussions.

Mike Soh

Alexandria

Montgomery County citizens should always come first

Re: “Montgomery declines police support to federal agents on immigration raids,” July 8

Just how out of touch is Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett?  An 11-year veteran of the Montgomery County police volunteer program was removed because he accidentally wore his volunteer ID to a recent citizens’ rally at the Rockville Day Laborer Center — where MCPD officers, badges in full view, were fraternizing with lawbreaking illegal aliens. 

Mr. Leggett and Police Chief Tom Manger also reaffirmed that they are not willing to automatically provide police protection for federal agents conducting workplace immigration raids, although a spokesperson said police would respond “if violence did break out.” This the same after-the-fact way they responded when a popular waiter at Lake Forest Mall in Gaithersburg was killed by an illegal alien/MS-13 gang member.

Mr. Leggett also wants to charge citizens for the use of emergency ambulance services and is willing to force our schoolchildren to walk ridiculous distances on dark, traffic-laden roadways in the name of budget savings — while he continues to expand free “Montgomery Cares” health clinics and county funding for CASA of Maryland to support illegal aliens and their families. Why don’t citizens come first in Montgomery County?

Brad Botwin

Director,

Help Save Maryland

Informed consent law is about personal responsibility

Re: “South Dakota law limits women’s freedom,” From Readers, July 8

Edd Doerr equates South Dakota’s informed consent law with an “attack” on “women’s freedom of conscience.” But all an informed conscience does is enable one to assume responsibility for one’s actions. 

Certainly Mr. Doerr’s faith in neuroscience in defining the “functions of personhood” is personal to him. But conscience arbitration is not medical science’s bailiwick. And if the South Dakota law is “ahistorical,” he can obtain a writ from the Supreme Court to have the law reviewed.  After all, the Constitution historically says whatever the Supreme Court says it does. 

Killing a person in the womb constitutes a grave breach of natural and divine law in any biblical epoch. Mr. Doerr is free to accept that — or not.

George P. Koukoulas

Perry Hall, Md.

Women deserve to hear the truth about abortion

Mr. Doerr claims that a South Dakota law requiring that women considering abortion be told that it will “terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being”  somehow “disrespects” and “attacks” their “freedom of conscience.” We know that what the law says is true from DNA, sonograms and the bodies of aborted babies.

Mr. Doerr makes silly appeals to both the 18th century, when slavery was legal, and the Bible. But the Bible tells how God ordained Isaiah, Samson and Jesus for special missions before they were even conceived. Women are not the bozos Doerr seems to think they are. They deserve the truth.

Nancy Wells

Potomac