Re: “Letter to the editor: State’s lax gun laws repel these would-be vacationers” (July 23):
David Guenette truly believes that strict gun control laws protect him and his family from criminals and that legal gun owners are some sort of a plague on humanity. Well, perhaps we should examine some interesting numbers that might dissuade him from his delusional thinking.
In 2010, the population of Maine was about 1.33 million, California was about 38.8 million and Mr. Guenette’s home city of San Francisco was about 316,000.
If his fear of coming to Maine is based in fact, then the numbers should bear him out: If strict gun control is the answer, then murder rates in California should be much lower per capita that in Maine.
In 2010, Maine had 11 murders in the entire state during the year. The state of California had 2,935, and the city of San Francisco had 48.
California, that bastion of liberalism, has some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation, yet with a population approximately 29.17 times as large as Maine’s, its murder rate on a per capita basis is almost 267 times as high as ours. San Francisco, with a population of about 26 percent of Maine’s, has a murder rate about 430 percent higher than Maine.
Come visit, sir. You will be 430 percent safer than you are at home.
Edward H. Foster
South Portland
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