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C00002 00002	Mr. William Safire
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Mr. William Safire
New York Times

Dear Mr. Safire:

	Your column advising readers not to carry guns attempts to
answer from general principles what really depends on the particular
situation.

	There are certainly cities in the world and even in the US
where no-one would challenge your advice.  They are safe enough
so that carrying a gun is far more likely to do harm than good.
However, in those cities even people with the personality of
Bernhard Goetz don't carry guns.  Even he didn't carry one
until after he was mugged and robbed the first time.

	There are other cities, perhaps Beirut is one, where the
enforcement of law is so far broken down that people have to
protect themselves as best they can, and this often involves
carrying guns and hiring armed guards.

	The question is where New York lies on this spectrum.
I live in a safe city myself, Stanford, California.  I don't own
a gun, and probably wouldn't keep a handgun if offered it free.
When I visit New York I wouldn't carry one even if it were legal.

	However, many people feel that law enforcement has so far
broken down that Goetz was justified in carrying it and responding
to implied threats by four teen agers by using it.
The polls indicate that even a black is more likely to have bad
dreams about being surrounded by four muggers than to imagine
himself shot by a paranoid or bigoted white man.

	Most likely New York is still safe enough that more people
will be killed if more respectable people carry handguns.  After all
shootouts among police are not unheard of.  However, the objective
level of danger may not be decisive.  While the objective danger
might increase if more people carried guns, the level of fear
might decrease.  If a potential mugger knew that there was a substantial
chance of being shot by an innocent looking subway passenger if he
mugged someone else in a subway car, they might be discouraged
enough so that all subway passengers would feel safer.

	If the public ever becomes convinced that an armed public
feels safer, the laws against carrying guns will be changed.
My own guess is that New York subway riders would feel safer if
more respectable civilians carried guns.  Most likely they wouldn't
be safer, but being shot as an innocent bystander is less feared
than being deliberately killed or injured or robbed by muggers.

	If the rules are to be changed, the best way might to allow only
respectable people to carry guns.  Who is respectable?  Anyone
who can get an insurance company to sell him a gun carrier's liability policy.

	To recapitulate, whether people should carry guns and react
violently to what they think are attacks depends on the safety of
the city and cannot be determined abstractly.

Sincerely.