May|June 2003

DEFENDING GUN CONTROL

James Jacobs's commentary on gun control ("Off Target," January | February) recognizes that existing gun laws have failed to realize their full preventive potential. But his proposed solution amounts to throwing up our hands and giving in to the bluster of a vocal but ever-shrinking minority of pro-gun extremists.

Ironically, Jacobs supports his position against gun control with a series of arguments in favor of stronger gun laws. He points out, for example, that the Brady Act's effectiveness is diminished by numerous loopholes: Many transactions are exempt from the law, and the information reviewed during background checks is incomplete. He's right, of course. Every gun transaction should be subject to a background check and all background checks should be more comprehensive.

Firearms are the only consumer product not subject to any federal safety-related regulatory oversight. In this unique regulatory vacuum, the gun industry has steadfastly refused to adopt cheap, feasible, effective designs that guard against unintentional firings and use by children. Some of these features have existed for over a century and could have saved countless lives if the industry had been properly regulated.

Jacobs proposes that we abandon efforts to bring the nation's only unsupervised industry under control, opting instead for a futile system of spiraling punishments for people who misuse guns. Although every gun crime should be vigorously prosecuted and punished, punishment alone is doomed to fail as a prevention strategy. The prospect of punishment has little deterrent effect on most criminals. Punishment alone has been our national gun policy for decades, and it has been an abject failure.

Eric Gorovitz
Policy Director
Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence


PRESIDENTIAL PLATES

In "Taxation Without Representation," (January | February) Katherine Marsh re-ports that President Clinton chose to put a plate with the slogan "Taxation Without Representation" on the presidential limo. President Bush, she adds, had the plates removed upon taking office. License plates, the president said, are no place to make "a political statement."

But was Marsh making a political statement of her own? As The Washington Post reported at the time, Clinton did not place the "Taxation" plate on the presidential limo until a month before President Bush took office. Clinton wasn't standing up for the District; he was trying to disrupt the orderly transfer of power.

Daniel H. Borinsky
Lake Ridge, Va.

CLASSICAL PUNISHMENT

Matthew Pearl's article "Dante and the Death Penalty" (January | February) raises a number of interesting questions: What constitutes appropriate punishment? Should criminal punishment serve the desire for vengeance in a victim or a victim's family? But Pearl avoids making the crucial point that as a practical matter, one of the reasons that the state is the entity that punishes wrongdoers is to bring finality. Without a third-party intermediary, individuals would seek their own justice, creating a self-perpetuating system of retribution. A virtue of state intervention, as readers of Aeschylus' Oresteia know, is an end to the cycle of vengeance.

Dale C. Van Demark
Vienna, Va.

CORRECTION

Due to an editing error, "Chapel and State" (January | February) asserted that "the most important battle over marriage in the nation's history taught us that marriage is defined by the federal government." The sentence should have stated that the battle "taught us that the boundaries of marriage are defined by the state, not individuals." The piece also incorrectly indicated that 19th-century antipolygamists convinced states to ban polygamy; in fact, every state (though not the Utah territory) had already banned the practice.