LETTERS

Bullets and Ballots



I take exception to the article by Chris Tucker [“Parting Shot,” June] attempting to explain the influence of the National Rifle Association. Attempting to blame society’s problems on guns makes no more sense than blaming said problems on cars, boats, knives, or any other inanimate object. Any inanimate object is as good or bad as the person using it, as our thousands of yearly highway fatalities show with ample clarity. The NRA is trying to protect people’s choices. Our country (thank God) is still one of opportunity and choices, not regulations and guarantees. Any modification or curtailment of any one of the Bill of Rights threatens all the others, including the freedom of the press!

Don W. McClure

Lake Dallas



How can the NRA feel that its rights are being violated by the government’s trying to control who can and cannot buy a gun? What about the rights of those of us who feel handguns are dangerous and should be controlled? Are our rights meaningless to our lawmakers?

A handgun, and especially a Saturday night special, is manufactured for one purpose only-to kill another human being. Yet our government is making it possible for anyone, including criminals and mental patients, to own one. In a world full of terrorism and crime, I would think our lawmakers would want to strengthen the gun laws. But the government has just taken a giant step backward in protecting the rights of Americans.

J.M. RichardsonDallas



Two things have always bothered gun owners (whether collectors or users) about attempts at gun control. The first is the presumption that a gun owner, if allowed to continue to own a gun, is likely to commit a crime which he or she might not otherwise commit, absent the gun. Therefore, if the owner is required to be registered, apprehension is all the more swift. Second, while efforts to limit guns in ownership and numbers are directed at the handgun, we know that the eventual goal is to eliminate legal possession of all guns. Indeed, the purist in anti-gun philosophy wants even the police to go about unarmed. The National Rifle Association could not be successful in its efforts to return sense to the federal statutes if there were not enough legislators who felt the same way. That’s what causes the uninformed, as is Chris Tucker, to lash out in so venomous an article.

Grover E. Smith

Dallas



June’s “Parting Shot” blasted colorful holes in all the “Big Bang” theories; but get ready for a salvo of emotional responses from the handgun zealots. Let’s hope they use your method of expression, rather than John Hinckley’s.

Dennis L. Chamberlain

Dallas



Chris Tucker argues that a full-blown ban needs enforcing against certain types of firearms. I suspect that if he came full clean with us, we’d learn that his ban should be extended to all firearms and all citizens. Here is the unspoken goal of the “no-gun nuts,” and this also explains the unflagging and uncompromising position of the National Rifle Association. The leaders of the outfit know full well that you gain nothing by appeasing a force hell-bent on achieving its own uncompromised victory. Mr. Chamberlain went to Munich and taught us this, a long time ago.

William N. Stokes Jr.

Dallas



With tragic irony I was reading your article on handgun control when I received a phone call from a Dallas woman whose son had just killed himself with a handgun. The son, recently released from a psychiatric hospital, had tried to kill himself by hanging, but failed. With fresh rope marks around his neck, the son walked into a gun dealer and purchased a handgun, no questions asked. He then used that handgun to accomplish what a rope failed to do.

Unfortunately, this tragic scenario is repeated hundreds, if not thousands, of times every year in this country. And it will continue until enough citizens make it clear to their representatives in Washington that our right to life is much more important than a so-called right to keep and bear arms. Until then, the National Rifle Association’s “shoot ’em up” mentality will continue to prevail and we will all continue to be potential victims.

Charles Acquard

Deputy Legislative Director

Handgun Control, Inc.

Washington, DC



Tremendous article on the NRA. Only it made me so mad I can hardly write. Let’s hope others read it. And someone stops these madmen.

James Krause

Dallas

DART Story On Target



Your article in the current issue about the largely self-inflicted wounds of DART [June] was tough, intelligent, timely, and exceed-ingly well written. Your editorial planners took on a job that the gutless Dallas news-papers, those paragons of blind boosterism, had not touched-then did dare to touch, but only after D set the example.

As a resident of Dallas for sixty-five years, I believe this self-conscious city is a big enough boy now to receive and tolerate a few well-aimed blows for some of the stuporous and wishy-washy things it occasionally does. I am elated that D has abandoned its essays on food/fashion/fun and is going after follies now being exhibited in this yet promising city. Congratulations.

ohn G. Burnett

Dallas



Southland: Courage, Not Cowardice



I originally subscribed to your magazine because I felt I might get a better insight into Dallas and some local “thinking.” However, now that I have had the chance to receive and read your magazine I regret my decision very much. I am appalled that you would take the position that the decision by Southland Corporation was “cowardly” [“Inside Dallas,” June]. To the contrary, their deci-sion was courageous both in their willingness to step away from sales and profit and in risking the appearance that they might be yielding to the pressure of those who continued to protest publicly.

I am now sure that I am not interested in Dallas “thinking” from your view. As a matter of fact I don’t believe that you come close to representing the position of the average Dallasite. Therefore, kindly cancel my subscription immediately.

F. X. Sullivan

Grand Prairie



You practiced your “freedom of choice” by giving a “Thumbs Down” award to Southland Corporation for halting sales of Playboy. Now, we are practicing our “freedom of choice” as happy members of what you call a “fundamentalist minority” to request that you cancel immediately our subscription to D.

Joe and Mary Lou Bailey

Dallas



How much evidence does D need to accept the simple fact that pornography is harmful to our community? Your advertisers clearly understand the relationship between what readers visualize in words and pictures and the resulting behavior (purchase of the product) that hopefully follows from the desire created by their advertisements. The point is that D has closed its mind to the evidence. Does D want more pornography in Dallas, or was this just a convenient opportunity for you to take a shot at the so-called fundamentalist minority? I suspect it is the latter. The evidence against pornography is too clear for anyone to miss.

The people of Dallas are saying that they want more of God in their lives, this means in their government, their schools, and their homes, as well as the magazines on sale at the neighborhood grocery store. D, you might want to listen up.

Jim Wood

Garland



My personal opinion is that pornography does have a definite connection to the crimes against women, children, the elderly, etc. I do not feel that Southland is going to suffer for their decision. In fact, I fully expect their sales will probably increase; hopefully, then-peace of mind will also. Southland’s recent actions will not do away with the pornography material available. One only has to peruse the local Yellow Pages under “Books” to discover that there are a large number of booksellers supplying all kinds of reading, videos, and other material for someone’s freedom of choice. There are magazine subscriptions to be had for delivery to your home of this pornographic material if this is what you want. So there really is a freedom of choice around.

Judie Morton

Dallas



A big thumbs down to you for your casti-gation of Southland Corporation for their courageous decision to halt sales of “adult magazines” in their stores. What makes you think there must be “compelling evidence” linking pornography and sex crimes to warrant such a decision? All the Southland leadership has done is to exercise their freedom to make a decision that is supported by 94 percent (15,347 of 16,376 mail and phone responses as of this writing) of those who responded. “Appeasing a fundamentalist minority”? Come on! We’re talking mainstream America here. Indeed, your shortsighted response to Southland’s decision reminds me of a comment by President Reagan: “The Democratic Party has moved so far left,” he said, “that they’ve left America.” Can the same be said of you with respect to having your hand on the pulse of Dallas? Additionally, there is no “wise middle course,” such as placing the magazines behind sales counters. You either sell and profit from smut or you don’t.

Rick Schwab

Fort Worth