To the editors:



Re: “Pulling the Trigger,” editorial, Nov. 30.

I don’t live near Harvard Yard, and I don’t know how civilized things are there. I have lived most of my life in Texas. I have been in and out of Law Enforcement, much of it as an unpaid reserve officer, for 30 years. I teach the Concealed Handgun Course for the Texas Department of Public Safety’s Concealed Handgun Unit. I have been pulled off the street, told to go get my gun to back up the sheriff’s deputies as they look for escaped prisoners in West Texas. And it was not because I was an ex-law enforcement officer.

In communities that do not have police departments—where one or two sheriffs deputies have to cover 1,000 square miles—you dial 9-1-1 and wait, often times, for two or three hours. Things have often turned out okay because there has been a handgun in most glove boxes and very few pickup trucks (not to mention homes) without a loaded rifle or shotgun. People knew that, and the crime rate was very low.

Please don’t tell me that the Second Amendment is out of date.



WALTER C. LEE, Jr.

La Grange, Texas

December 2, 2007



The writer teaches the Concealed Handgun Course for the Texas Department of Public Safety’s Concealed Handgun Unit.