Letter writers respond to our op-ed in the New York Times, our analysis

Letters in the February 14th New York Times:

Response:

Congresswoman Kelly wants one to believe that across Republican and Democratic administrations, across Republican and Democratic-controlled congresses, the incredibly low rate of prosecutions and convictions for people who were supposedly banned from owning guns weren’t prosecuted because of a lack of funds.  In 2010, there were 28 prosecutions and 13 convictions.  The irony is that even when the Democrats controlled both the Congress and the presidency in 2010 there was not a peep about underfunding. In addition, with false answers on the 4473 for people who are prohibited from owning guns, these cases tend to be extremely easy and low cost to prosecute.  The low prosecutions during the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations weren’t due to their unwillingness to enforce the law or because of budget issues.  It was due to the fact that they weren’t really cases.

Response:

Police are in fact support gun ownership for reducing crime and reducing the harm from mass public shootings.  See this survey from PoliceOne.com.  Here are some of the survey question responses.