In response to John Hampshire’s letter, it is not the availability of firearms, but the unavailability that allows shooting sprees (Sept. 7). Anyone who wants to go on a rampage knows that there is no one who can shoot back.

In this current anti-gun culture, most facilities are pronounced “gun free” and all law-abiding citizens will abide by those rules.

Rarely ever reported in the media is the fact that some such incidents of mayhem of this sort have been stopped or averted where someone has been able to retrieve a firearm and confront the perpetrator. Even unstable people can understand that it is easy to victimize unarmed citizens, but they would have to think seriously of confronting someone who may be able to defend themselves and those about them.

If you were being assaulted, raped, robbed and I, a law-abiding person with a firearm were nearby, you would want me to intervene, wouldn’t you?

Hap Gallin, West Sumner