Letter: Guns in the home: Handle with care
In January, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott invited New York gun owners to move to Texas. (Jan. 15, 2013) Credit: Getty Images
In “Gun ownership and defending one’s home” [Letters, Feb. 17], a letter writer argued that citizens should have guns in their homes to protect themselves from burglars. He reported that 3.7 million households experienced burglaries between 2003 and 2007 and that 7 percent of the time, the homeowner experienced violent victimization.
There are 116 million households in the United States. That means that, over five years, you had a little more than a 0.2 percent chance of experiencing burglary-related violence in your home.
Be really careful with your weapon, however; nearly 1.7 million children live in households where guns are stored either loaded or not locked away. This makes American children 17 times more likely to be unintentionally killed with a gun, compared with other high-income countries.
Further, in 2015, 265 children younger than 18 picked up a firearm and shot someone by accident, and 83 of those shootings were fatal.
Peter LaMassa, Massapequa Park
