‘Mayor’s Gun Talk’

“Mayor’s Gun Talk Begets a Warning From Rifle Group” was a good article, however, with a little more investigating, Julia Levy could have found out that a straw man sale of firearms already carries heavy fines and jail time at the federal level [“Page 1, January 3, 2006].

Unfortunately, as in the case of the Washington, D.C., sniper, a judge found it in his heart to only penalize the Seattle man who bought a rifle for the duo a lousy three-month’s probation. What good does that do to prevent that type of sale?

Until the laws on the books are properly enforced you will have no chance of limiting gun violence.

ROBERT CUNNINGHAM
Bellingham, Wash.

‘Sole Arbiter of Secrets’

Eli Lake’s “Sole Arbiter of Secrets,” offers pennywise but pound-foolish arguments [Opinion, January 6, 2006].

Why does he direct this lecture to conservatives “to steer clear of prosecuting anti-leaking cases”? It’s a bit late in the game for Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, who faces 30 years in the slammer if convicted.

To be fair, Mr. Lake’s preachments should be directed as much to the anti-Bush liberals who had initiated the Justice Department probe into the leak of Valerie Plame’s identity in the Central Intelligence Agency as an operative who functioned as an analyst.

Partisan politics can only cause the best laid plans of mice and men to go awry, which is a far greater danger than that of which he speaks.

I have far greater concern of Mr. Lake’s propensity for emulating Chicken Little with his “sky is falling” American Civil Liberties Union concerns. For example, his warnings with respect to the dangers inherent in the government’s executive authority so necessary in prosecuting a war stretching beyond the point of diminishing returns to the detriment of our civil liberties is not something that thinking citizens can lightly dismiss.

But the fact is that the existential threat to America in the age of weapons of mass destruction is far greater than the threat that the iron curtain of fascism is about to descend all over this great nation of ours.

To play the liberal game of misjudging which threat is greater for reasons of partisan politics, the one posed by President Bush to protect us from the evils of international terrorism or the one posed to our civil liberties is playing a fool’s game.

Let’s not forget that America’s greatest president, Abraham Lincoln, had suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War, to the country’s everlasting benefit, with no lasting damage to our basic freedoms.

JULIUS GORDON
Douglaston, N.Y.

‘Green Party Poseurs’

All the more power to Governor Schwarzenegger for acting the way he did, and to Mark Steyn for writing a great article on the stadium “controversy” [“Green Party Poseurs,” Opinion, January 3, 2006].

All the way through my reading of the op-ed piece, I wanted to shout “Right on, Arnold.” In fact I would also like to complete this with another paraphrased song: “This was the day that Arnold socked it to the Graz Party PCA (Politically Correct Assembly).”

ETHEL SCHER
Riverdale

‘Listen to Reagan’

Taxpayers cannot afford the pension system now in place for the transport Workers [“Listen to Reagan,” Editorial, December 22, 2005]. There is a solution, get rid of most of the subway workers by automating the trains. Automated train service is now in use at many airports and elsewhere as well. This is 2005, not 1905

PAUL ROSEN
Great Neck, N.Y.

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