Dogs, not guns.

• Author: Egerton, Frank N.
• Position: Letters to the Editor - Letter to the editor

Gun owner Frank Smyth ("Three Ways to Beat the NRA," November issue) urges us to organize at the grassroots level against the NRA, but to respect gun owners. That is a hopeless task.

The reason the NRA is so powerful is because it encourages gun ownership with a constant stream of propaganda. The basic problem is our gun culture, a culture Smyth supports. Smyth wants to be able to shoot a fellow American if he becomes fearful of him or her. A gun in a house is much more likely to be used to shoot someone who lives there, rather than an intruder.

What America really needs is a campaign to get Americans to trade in their security guns for large dogs.

My large dog protects my house whether I am home or not. Potential intruders hear Fuzzy bark and move on to houses that do not have barking dogs.

Frank N. Egerton

Racine, Wisconsin

Nice to see The Progressive give space to a defense of gun ownership. Frank Smyth correctly frames the debate as one between gun safety and gun violence. But he is wrong about why John Morse and Angela Giron lost the recall elections in Colorado. Voter turnout was small for the special election--21 percent and 35 percent--and not a "truly impressive turnout" as Smyth said.

When New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg threw $350,000 into the races to defeat the recall, well, the NRA didn't really have to do much to arouse its membership. Folks in Colorado like their guns about as much as they do in Texas. They viewed Bloomberg as an outside agitator and a carpetbagger. The lesson gun control advocates can take away is that big money is no substitute for a...