Kristof on point about guns
With luck, many of our Georgia legislators will read Nicholas Kristof’s column published Jan. 21 on the Opinion page, “Some inconvenient facts about guns for liberals.” He lays out a simple, practical, sensible option for all Americans in favor of gun safety: universal background checks on every purchaser of guns, no matter where or how. Evidently 40 percent of firearms in the U.S. are acquired without a background check. (One of the specific facts in the original, uncut version of the column.) If the Georgia Legislature could pass legislation requiring a comprehensive background check on every gun purchaser and include enforcement, we would have a big improvement in the Georgia situation. The more than 10 percent of all U.S. murders committed in domestic violence cases could be reduced. No single piece of legislation is going to achieve gun safety. Nothing is simple. But the do-nothing option is not a good choice. Neither is the expand-ownership option under the current incomplete system of background checks. And regrettably, those appear to be the choices the Georgia Legislature favors.
ALIDA C. SILVERMAN, ATLANTA
Redistribution of wealth is theft
Paul Krugman again thinks that he is not only smarter than the rest of us, but is the anointed source of our collective conscience (“Redistribution of wealth is not inherently wrong,” Opinion, Jan. 18). His philosophy is rooted in the notion that he is the judge who decides how rich the rich need to be and that he carries the yardstick by which fairness is defined. The entire column demands that inequality of results should somehow be definitive, irrespective of equality of opportunity. He promotes asset confiscation as the tool for achieving social justice based on his own moral notion of fair share. I challenge Mr. Krugman to first define the word fair, not fair share. That process must take into account the fact that if any of us reach in our pocket and transfer our own wealth, it is moral and charitable. If his hand is in our pocket, it’s immoral and theft.
DENNIS MCGOWAN, SNELLVILLE
