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Most Americans don’t want guns in home

Steve Quick’s letter (“Preserve the right to defend ourselves,” July 31) is replete with false assumptions.

The vast majority of Americans don’t want to “live in a world where people carry firearms.” Only 30 percent of people now have a gun in the house, and that overstates the real figure, because it includes guns people who have inherited and never use.

Only a small fraction of gun owners have any desire to carry a gun in public.

The jury in the George Zimmerman case did not decide who initiated the confrontation, as Mr. Quick claims; they couldn’t know beyond a reasonable doubt what happened, so they acquitted.

What is clear is that, if Zimmerman didn’t have a gun, he would not have been emboldened to take the law into his own hands and Trayvon Martin would not be dead. That’s why “concealed carry” is a bad idea.

If you want to have a gun in your home for protection or for hunting, that’s your right. I just hope you keep it secured, because it’s much more likely to be used on someone in your home than on an intruder.

Matt Flamm

Palatine

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