Letter to the Editor: Courts have spoken - People should protect themselves

An excellent letter to the editor has been written by a police officer with 25 years of experience, and published in the Columbus Dispatch. Mr. Joseph Wayne wrote in response to an earlier letter from the mother of a person who was injured in the CRWU shooting.

Click here to read the full letter in the Columbus Dispatch, or click on the "Read More..." link below for an archived version.

Saturday, July 19, 2003

I respond to Eleanor Helper’s recent letter, "Armed citizens are not a foregone asset," about the shooting at Case Western Reserve University. Her letter was laced with emotionalism and little substance.

A gunman entered the school, killing one and injuring two. I fail to understand the logic and reasoning behind her conclusion that waiting seven hours to rescue 93 people is a desirable outcome.

Rather, how about a scenario in which a legally armed civilian resists and either stops the assailant or keeps the maniac preoccupied with defending himself instead of engaging helpless victims in a "gun-free" school zone?

It appears that Helper would be happy to wait for outside agencies to intervene on her behalf. Personally, if I found myself in the same situation, I would prefer to rely on a competent stranger or even myself to take care of matters immediately rather than waiting for the cavalry, while law-enforcement officers parade around outside and backslap each other as new victims are chosen inside.

I don’t want to sound disrespectful to the officers in the Cleveland area, but having been an officer for 25 years, I feel those "two passing police officers" should have gone in after the gunman right away. Some days are bad days to be a cop. That was one of those days.

Americans have a right by law, by nature and by God to defend their own lives. If this is so, then we also have a right to find the means to do so. To say or believe otherwise is to cheapen all human life and reduce us to pawns of government who are reliant upon others for personal safety. Police are reactionary in design and function. They cannot protect even a small portion of the population and have no responsibility to do so.

The New York Supreme Court — New York is a good example of safety through gun control — in 1968 ruled that a victim who was attacked after seeking police protection, to no avail, had no right to protection because, the court said, it would place a crushing economic burden on the government.

In the 1982 case of Bowers vs. De-Vito, a federal appeals court said that there is "no Constitutional right to be protected by the state against being murdered by criminals or madmen." It also said, "The Constitution is a charter of negative liberties; it tells the state to let people alone; it does not require the federal govenment or the state to provide services, even so elementary a service as maintaining law and order."

Violence by street thugs against honest, law-abiding citizens is a clear call for responsible concealed carry of handguns by citizens everywhere.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, only 0.2 percent of all firearms are used in any criminal act. That leaves 99.8 percent of all firearms never being used in a criminal way. That puts things in correct, unemotional perspective.

Each individual is primarily responsible for the safety of himself and his family. Public officials are our elected servants. We are not servants to the officials we elect.

Some citizens of this state wish to carry concealed weapons to ensure the protection that government cannot and will not provide to them and their families. Let them do so without further stalling.

JOSEPH WAYNE
Johnstown