To Stephen Kent:
Your article in the April 7 issue of the Catholic Herald was an insult to every gun owner.
You generalize the population as unqualified to own a weapon. Evidently you are not a gun owner nor were you raised in a conservative hunting family.
I assure you that I, my family, and my children are just as qualified as most police officers or even more so.
Have you ever had a gun safety course yourself? Probably not because you do not know what you are talking about.
You state that colleges are places of non-violence? Where did you go to school?
Two of my daughters have attended UW-Madison, which yearly has on-campus muggings and rapes. My older daughter’s freshman year a young woman was raped just outside her dorm building.
That year a concealed weapons law was vetoed by then Governor Doyle. Believe me if it had passed, she would have been armed.
You say the Catechism of the Catholic Church allows guns for self-defense. Then you go against the Church by saying they (guns) are only needed in a society that lacks functioning police, military, and court system.
When you walk late at night or are alone in a secluded place, do you always have a policeman at your side? Of course not!
When a crime occurs 90 percent of the time, an officer is never present to prevent it. But if you are armed, I assure you, you can prevent it.
You live with a socialist view that the government can and will take care of you. I assure you they cannot.
You assume everyone follows the law. They don’t.
There will always be guns on campus in the hands of criminals. It would be nice if the weapons were in the hands of law-abiding citizens also. We are not unqualified as you state.
Ryan Lipska, Dodgeville
A qualified Catholic gun owner