To the editor: In a rebuttal to a letter, a reader questions a previous writer who said, “Remind me how guns make us safer,” regarding the Costco shooting in Corona, where an off-duty police officer shot someone he perceived as a threat from 20 feet away, also wounding two others.

The letter writer claims that “we can sleep reasonably securely at night, knowing that most criminals are too afraid to break into an occupied home.” This is a weak defense. Also, the statement that “a firearm also enhances safety for the disabled, weak, old or sick” is inane and cannot be equated with firing a weapon in a public setting.

It’s not easy to accurately fire a handgun, much less in the dark, when awakened and confused by an intruder. Also, doing so may injure another occupant in the house.

For context, I am an Army veteran who served 14 months in South Korea as a military policeman, and I was trained to use a handgun as a last resort.


Dean Blau, Lake Balboa