PUBLIC FORUM : POLITICIANS UNLIKELY TO TAKE WISE ACTION IN MASS SHOOTINGS.

Elected leaders, having failed in safeguarding the public, are now seeking to cover up that failure by loudly advocating the passage of more ineffective, redundant and wrong-headed laws to control weapons. Good citizens will comply with the laws and bad people will not. The facts are very simple.

By Los Angeles Chief Bernard Park's own public statement, the police cannot protect individual citizens. Story after story indicates that gun crimes are committed by people who are on parole or probation, or have served abbreviated sentences, or are flat-out crazy, and all are in illegal possession of firearms, anyway. Conviction rates vs. arrest rates are abominable, and the long sentences that should be imposed for serious crimes are plea-bargained away.

Gangs do as they please in the city while resources are drained to pursue victimless crimes. Our public officials need to stop their demagoguery and focus on getting an adequate police force for the city, scrutinizing court rulings involving gun crimes and making sure that laws and mandatory sentences already on the books for gun violations are rigidly carried out.

If there is a need for more prisons to hold violent criminals and money to provide secure incarceration for the criminally insane, the politicians should allocate it instead of wastefully spending it. As our police chief stated, their solution is to disarm everyone - decent people as well as criminals: an idealistic but ridiculous idea. Let's get the bad guys and put them away, not make the majority, who are decent people, more vulnerable to the minority who are our society's predators.

- Don Roth

Northridge

The Second Amendment reads: ``A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to bear Arms, shall not be infringed.'' The writers of the Constitution were referring to normal sane people. We have to believe their intent was not to allow the mentally deranged to carry weapons. The position that the National Rifle Association and many gun owners have taken seems to be that everyone has the right to own a weapon. That position has brought our country to this very dismal situation in which unbalanced people use weapons against their families and neighbors.

Our entire nation has become a shooting gallery, or is it a Wild West movie? The NRA may have a large membership, but is this the country we really want? Every one of us must become very vocal to our House representatives and senators that it is time to license gun owners, just as we license automobile drivers.

- Don Evans

Canoga Park

I am convinced that absolutely nothing will be done that could possibly prevent a repeat of the Granada Hills shootings.

Gov. Gray Davis wants warning labels and trigger locks on guns. Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky wants an end to gun shows in Los Angeles. The Los Angeles City Council wants an end to the sale and manufacture of the cheap handguns called Saturday night specials.

The state is going to require the surrender of 1,600 assault weapons from law-abiding citizens. I don't believe even one life would be saved if all these measures were enacted, because not one politician has suggested any more criminal control laws. Not one politician has suggested ways to keep criminals off the streets. As Dennis Prager said, ``The problem during the Holocaust wasn't lack of gas control or even easy access to gas - it was Nazis.''

We live in a society that excuses and tolerates violent behavior. The average sentence served for a murder is less than 10 years; for rape, around four years. Buford O'Neal Furrow Jr. assaults a person with a deadly weapon and is freed so he could commit his deadly rampage. Why don't we demand that our politicians shut up and stop grandstanding about gun control and enact some serious legislation that will put a serious dent in crime by not letting criminals out of jail? Why should a murderer be let out of prison in the first place?

If we, as a society, allow these politicians to grandstand at the expense of real crime control, then we will have only ourselves to blame. Just imagine the day when you and I and every law-abiding person will be prevented by the state from purchasing or owning a firearm, and criminals will be the only ones with guns. Because that's the way it will be. Only law-abiding people will abide by the law.

- Glenn Smith

Woodland Hills

I am not now, have not been, and do not plan to be a member of the National Rifle Association. I also do not own a gun, but did serve in the U.S. Army. As a veteran, I know about guns and other weapons. While the media does not seem to know the meaning of ``automatic weapon,'' people who know guns do. It is against the law for a private citizen to own an automatic gun.

I am making a list of politicians. I will vote against each and every politician who says that he or she has written the gun-control law that will stop the violence. Politicians, Democrat or Republican, who use death by guns or terror by guns as a vote-for-me tool must be sent out of office swiftly. Politicians who use terror suffered by our children to further their careers should be removed from office because they are unworthy to serve the people.

It is time to ask why the violence occurred, not how the violence was done.

- Francis Jansen

Northridge

Let me see if I have this straight: The Democrats want to ban firearms that they call assault weapons because they supposedly are the weapons of choice of gangsters and other criminals.

Typically, an assault weapon is very expensive, usually over $1,000. If you ask the FBI how many assault weapons are actually used in crimes, you will learn that the number is negligibly small, in fact. FBI, state and local crime statistics show that more murders are committed with fists and feet, knives and blunt objects than with assault weapons. Indeed, the Urban Institute, hardly a conservative organization, found in 1997 that less than 0.5 percent of firearms crimes were committed with assault weapons.

Now the Democrats want to ban the cheap handguns called Saturday night specials because they are ``the weapons of choice on the streets of Los Angeles,'' according to Assemblyman Antonio Villaraigosa. So basically the plan is to ban all firearms, whether cheap or dear. It would be wonderful if those supporting this legislation would simply admit this obvious truth regarding their ultimate goal.

For politicians who claim to have compassion for the poor, it is remarkable that the Democrats would vote to make it more difficult for the working poor to defend themselves against criminal elements in their neighborhoods. Indeed, were Republicans to pass such legislation, the Democrats would rightly accuse them of both hypocrisy and racism.

- James F. Glass

Chatsworth

Lately I have seen a series of letters whose lack of logic has brought me close to gagging. Their shared viewpoint is this: Since cars kill - as do power saws, kitchen knives, prescription drugs, etc. - should we not ban these items along with the guns that also kill and that we wish to ban?

There is all the difference in the world between guns and the other items. Cars, etc., are not made for the express purpose of threatening or injuring others, as are guns. It's tough to hide a Cadillac under your coat and then run people down with it in schools and office buildings. You can hide in the bushes and throw knives at folks, but with less killing efficiency than with a gun. Even if you sugar-coat tranquilizers, you likely will murder fewer little kids in day-care centers with pills than with bullets. And so on.

Banning cars would cause just a wee bit more economic disruption than banning guns - which, by the way, most of us do not want to do. We want better control, not a ban, of an item that is yours by right but may be our mayhem-causing headache.

Perhaps a large tax and/or mandatory insurance, to offset the costs of gun injuries, is in order. After all, your right to keep and bear arms does not include a right to acquire them on the cheap. Quit comparing guns to other objects. Guns are unique. No other single item is as low-cost, available and efficient at harming other humans, for well or ill. That's why police and military personnel are not issued baseball bats.

- Thomas E. Braun

Glendale

In light of today's Daily News Public Forum topic, I have a quote that seems fitting:

``For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration. Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead to the future.'' - Adolf Hitler, 1935.

Rather chilling, in light of the fact that, in Nazi Germany, gun confiscation soon followed registration. After confiscation, Jews, communists and others deemed to be ``undesirable'' could not defend themselves from their tyrannical government. The rest is well-known history.

People say that will never happen in America! I doubt that people in 1930s Germany thought it would happen to them, but it did. People in China, Cambodia, Guatemala and Soviet Russia didn't think it could happen to them, but it did. It is a plain fact of modern history that when a government requires registration of firearms, confiscation and then genocide soon follow.

It's time for the government to start enforcing the gun laws already on the books and stop passing feel-good legislation that only serves to disarm the law-abiding citizens and to favor the criminal element in society that will never abide by any gun-control laws.

- John Tibbetts

Canoga Park

Sacramento is not truly concerned about protecting the public safety. Sacramento really wants to disarm the public.

- Stephen Crane

West Los Angeles 

The governor just signed a bill to force the registration of what he erroneously calls assault weapons.

Honest gun owners around the state immediately feared this move would be followed by confiscation. How silly of them. The registration is just so the state can keep track of the guns. But wait. U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein jumped the gun, so to speak, and called for confiscation before the registration began. So, senator, who do you think is going to register guns now? Certainly not the criminals and gang members. But they weren't going to, anyway. Do you really think for one minute anyone is going to send you a letter saying, sure, I have a gun, so come and pick it up?

And what's your solution? Throw 'em all in jail? Now there's a great idea. Pass laws to make honest, law-abiding citizens into criminals. And just exactly what problem does that solve? If Police Chief Bernard Parks, Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky and Feinstein think they're going to stop a single crime with this nonsense, they're living in a fool's paradise. But, then, I can't think of a more appropriate place for them to preside.

- Stephen A. Bonds

Van Nuys

Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky's poorly conceived efforts to ban gun shows at Fairplex, the Los Angeles County fairgrounds, misses the mark. While the motive of reducing gun violence is a good one, stomping on the public's First Amendment right to freedom of assembly is not the answer.

No restrictions on gun shows in California would have prevented that maniac from attacking the North Valley day-care center. That crazy brought his contraband weapons with him from out of state. Gun shows, specifically the ones held at Fairplex, provide the public with information on firearms safety, preparedness and history.

It was reported that the maniac who attacked theS North Valley day-care center did so because other potential targets were better prepared. By banning gun shows and stifling the public's access to preparedness, potential targets will be even less prepared. Yaroslavsky's proposed ban on gun shows simply makes us all more attractive victims.

- Erik W. Olson

Castaic

Many agencies are advising that we have supplies and extra cash available for Y2K. Does anyone believe that the Los Angeles Police Department, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department or the California National Guard will protect the citizens against armed burglars, home-invasion robbers and carjackers who know that many of us may have several hundred or more dollars on hand?

The state, the Sheriff's Department and the LAPD should take the initiative to establish and promote classes for law-abiding citizens with legally purchased firearms to receive gun-use safety instruction at minimal cost or no cost to protect themselves from any resulting Y2K chaos.

Instead, Gov. Gray Davis, Sheriff Lee Baca, Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky and Police Chief Bernard Parks are leading the campaign to further disarm law-abiding citizens by trying to enact laws against reasonably priced handguns, which they call Saturday night specials, and other firearms that are often used for home protection.

The latest round of media frenzy followed by immediate and shameless political grandstanding, at the expense of the Jewish day-care center victims, is appalling. It also demonstrates how far these self-serving bureaucrats are detached from the reality on the streets. The only recent law that serves to deter crime is the ``three strikes, you're out'' law adopted by the voters. These bureaucrats should note this law was passed against criminals, not against the rights of law-abiding citizens. Davis, Baca, Yaroslavsky and Parks should be remembered for their self-serving and counterproductive actions the next time each is up for re-election.

- Jack Strelioff

Woodland Hills

IS have a few questions for our anti-gun leaders. I will take answers from our aspiring dictator, Gov. Gray Davis, down to local City Councilman Mike Feuer.

Since crazy criminal suspect Buford O'Neal Furrow Jr. drove 1,100 miles across three states to launch his attack on defenseless people, how will passing any law in California keep it from happening again?

The compliance rate for the original assault-weapons law in 1989 was under 10 percent. What makes you think your new laws will be obeyed any better?

What are you going to do about the owners of the 1,600 assault weapons that people tried to register late? Are you going to believe them if they say they shipped the guns to their brother in Nebraska or put them in a public storage facility in Nevada? If you don't believe them, are you going to murder their families, like Randy Weaver's family, or burn them alive, like the Branch Davidians?

When the next crazy criminal comes down on a defenseless population, firebombing Fairfax synagogues, throwing dynamite bombs into gay bars in West Hollywood or just spraying bullets, what laws are you going to ask for next, and why do you think they will work?

- Roger Young

Van Nuys

Is the public in general adequately protected? The answer should be obvious: an emphatic no.

Are more unenforced laws going to make us safer? See the previous answer.

It seems that law enforcement suffers from a desire to lock the barn door after the horses get away. Sacramento has put into place enough preventive measures. What we need is for our top cop in Los Angeles to change his policies. Corpses do not take priority over the living.

When I have been credibly threatened with murder, the courts have done their job via restraining orders and then those orders are violated, I expect the perpetrator to be arrested - for a felony, according to Section 646.9, Subdivision (b) of the Penal Code.

Instead, 15-year-old twins were killed this year. After a stalking report had been filed, a woman was stabbed ISto death on Angeles Crest Highway in broad daylight by an ex-husband, despite court orders and her numerous calls to local authorities. A young lady and her male neighbor were bludgeoned to death with a chunk of concrete by an ex-spouse whom she had reported was harassing her - again, under a shining sun.

Those are only five from a tragically long list. Yes, the killers were caught. Yet the victims are still in dark boxes under hallowed sod.

But why fill up the overcrowded jails with known potential killers? It will only increase crime statistics. Better wait until someone threatened actually dies - unless, of course, that someone is a police officer, a bureaucrat or a celebrity.

Until Barney the top cop - also known as Chief Bernard Parks - gets his priorities straight or starts issuing concealed-weapons permits, we're dying out here.

- Ricky Lee Ford

Winnetka

The anti-gun legislators in our state have passed another well-meaning but harmful firearms bill. At the Van Nuys police station one day, an officer late to roll call came running up the stairs and his holster came open, dropping his service revolver, which accidentally discharged.

Under the new bill, this firearm could not be sold. Even the automatics will sometimes accidentally discharge when dropped. If cheap loads are fired, which foul the weapon, stoppages or jams would occur, and another weapon would be banned from sale. This bill does nothing to ban junk guns, but actually harms the public and law enforcement. Our elected officials should do their homework and not listen to outsiders like Handgun Control Inc., whose agenda is to remove all firearms from public ownership.

- Peter J. Kurt

Woodland Hills