Chad Hayward’s letter in Monday’s paper (“Registration could help catch sniper,” Oct. 21″) demonstrated good intentions but also naivete. The Maryland sniper is most certainly a candidate for execution, but national gun registration is, unfortunately, unacceptable. Gun fingerprinting, in that the markings left on a fired bullet from a gun are unique to that gun, is acceptable, but a list of persons who own guns only leaves the door open to compromising gun rights altogether. Remember it was the lists of registered gun owners that was used to aid gun confiscation in Europe in the early nineties (and in the middle ’30s Germany.

And no, Mr. Hayward, men like the Maryland sniper do not give gun owners a bad name. Gun ownership, like a vocal populace and active electorate, is vital to the continuation of a free society. Just as some demand that John Ashcroft is not entitled to extreme means even in light of Sept. 11, so must other demand that the interest that the interest of safety does not void those obstacles placed in the way of those who might sacrifice the Second Amendment, or the First, Third, Fourth, etc. Should all guns be I.D.ed in terms of the marking they make on bullets when fired? Not an unhandsome idea. Should gun owners be part of a national database? Absolutely not. After all, if you’re crazy enough to snipe people but methodical enough to escape every time, would you not simply think to falsify identification on a gun registration slip?

David James Sheets

Sophomore

Electrical Engineering