Jeff Soyer does a better job of reading the Philadelphia Daily News letters to the editor than I do (I tend to skip letters to the editor, which I shouldn't), and he reprints an especially good one:

THE NOTION that Philadelphia can control or reduce its burgeoning murder rate by enacting gun-control legislation is nothing short of ludicrous. You write in your editorial that of the 380 homicides committed in Philadelphia last year, about 80 percent were "caused" by handguns. Really? I would have thought that 100 percent of all homicides are committed by other people. Handguns, indeed all firearms, are inanimate objects incapable of independent action.

Since all murders are committed by criminals, what makes you think that they will all of sudden start obeying gun-control laws when they show no inclination to obey any other laws?

You must be joking when you call for "ordinances to control such things as where firearms could be discharged or to limit guns on publicly owned grounds." I can just see it now - a young armed thug is about to commit mayhem but suddenly realizes he is standing on publicly owned land and leaves peaceably.

As to whether one-a-month gun purchases will reduce the murder rate, just look at Washington to see how such legislation is totally ineffective. D.C. doesn't let citizens purchase any handguns in any time period and their murder rate is at or near the top of all the rates countrywide.

Paul B. Raynolds, Summit, N.J.

Still, the "guns cause murder" meme never seems to go away. Even criminals have caught on, and they're starting to blame their guns. The argument is along the lines of "but for the gun, I would never have shot my friend."

Murder is said to result from "arguments" which only become fatal because of the presence of a gun:

In the end, it's not a lack of civility that leads to arguments ending in murder - it's the presence of a gun. Unless the unending flow of lethal weapons gets slowed, no amount of respect for life, or community involvement or police overtime - or even God himself - can solve this problem.

But there are a lot of people who believe in gun magic, and magical guns. The magical guns are so powerful that in addition to making criminals commit crime, they can turn law abiding gun owners into criminals, all by themselves. Lest you think I exaggerate, read what one Philadelphia public official (in this case, Police Commissioner Johnson) says about concealed carry permit holders:

The commissioner said that the number of police officers is disproportionately low compared to the number of citizens with guns.

"At this point, right now, we have over 32,000 people in Philly who have permits to carry (and) actually walk the streets of Philly with a gun. We only have 6,400 police officers. We're outnumbered nearly 5-to-1 with people who are on the streets with guns," Johnson said.

Crazy as the theory of magical guns sounds to me, I'm willing to suspend disbelief for the sake of the argument.

So, let's assume guns are magical. What I'd like to know is, what special training is imparted to the police which apparently immunizes them (but not other law abiding people, no matter how carefully screened) against the magical forces which radiate from the guns they carry? There has to be something, because I'm sure police officers get into arguments like everybody else, and yet I haven't seen a single story about an officer's gun turning an argument into a murder.

So what's the secret? Is there some specialized training that conveys immunity from gun magic? Do they wear magic amulets?

Whatever it is, if the goal is to neutralize evil gun magic, why not share the secret with the general public?