Editor: I think Paul M. Bowman has used US and Canadian homicide per gun statistics all wrong (The Times, Dec. 23). As he correctly states the many fewer guns in Canada do in fact kill more people per gun than the hoards of guns in the US.
In the US there are more guns than people. The real issue is not the number of homicides per gun, but rather the number of homicides per person.
It is not really the number of guns in the US that is the problem, it is the American attitude toward the use of guns. Their overall attitude towards guns is to use them to kill people. Our Canadian attitude is that a gun is for sport or for hunting.
Using Mr Bowman’s statics, as one of 36 million Canadians I have one chance in 272,898 of being killed by a gun.
My cousin in the US being one of 326 million Americans has a one in 40,173 chance of being killed by a gun. That means in the US you are almost seven times more likely to be killed by a gun than you are in Canada.
It is not guns that are the problem it is people and the attitude of people toward guns and their use. The real truth is the American attitude toward guns is the problem.
David Nielsen,
Walnut Grove