Dear Editor: I am confused by the recent and heated debate over gun control. Should there be trigger locks. How many days should be required for registration. Should parents be responsible when a child uses a gun. Will stricter control of guns mean that only the bad guys will have guns. And on and on. However, those questions are not what confuses me. What confuses me is why there is any debate at all over gun control because my absolute belief is that there is not one reason whatsoever for the existence of guns at all. Oh, I’ve heard all the excuses fur guns but I have never heard a single acceptable reason for the existence of guns. Any gun. Hunting? Let’s avoid even going there. Any needs for food can be addressed at the local market, deli, restaurant or gourmet shop, and please don’t give me hunting. What exactly is the point or purpose of taking a deadly weapon and deliberately aiming it at a defenseless animal on that animal’s natural home turf, pulling a trigger and blowing the brains or the heart out of that magnificent creature of God? Collecting? To be brutally frank, most guns are physically unattractive. I can think of thousands more combinations of wood and metal that are aesthetically far more beautiful and pleasing to the eye. Besides, if they are truthful, gun collectors will admit that they collect guns for their value and merit as weapons than as objects d’art. Self defense? That’s my whole point. If there were no guns at all, there would be no need to defend yourself with a gun. Law enforcement? Well again our police carry guns because the criminals do. So, again, if there were no guns at all, our police and other law enforcers would have no need for guns. England, historically, and recently, other nations have entire law enforcement agencies whose members do not use guns in their arsenal against crime. Military? This is basically the same argument as law enforcement but with a twist. From the time of the first guns used in war, mankind has set out to ensure that each military effort developed more and bigger and more devastating and more insidious guns. That grew into the biggest guns of them all — nuclear arms. All because my gun must be bigger than yours. Well, my gun doesn’t have to be bigger than yours if nobody has guns and my bomb doesn’t have to threaten the very existence of that planet if…well, you get my point. I also submit that all this recent debate is delusional. Do we really believe that more laws will provide greater safety against the threat that any gun presents? What makes society believe that anyone who would possess or use a gun for negative purposes will not suddenly become a law abiding citizen? I offer that murder already is a crime. Armed robbery is already a crime. Now the murderers and thieves are going to become law abiding? Or maybe we are supposed to believe that the murder or the holdup or the drug deal or the car jacking is less offensive because the gun used is now registered. Therein lies the problem. We hear lots of talk after another slaughter takes place. We hear lots of talk about the rights to own guns or bear arms and similar nonsense. The genius of our founding fathers never considered the lunacy of today when they formed the Constitution. We are supposed to have developed as a civilized society and yet we are more barbaric than most societies of the past. Pick any recent tragedy — Columbine High School or the six year old who killed another six year old. Now think of them if there were no guns in existence. What of the tragedy of any police or crime story wherein weapons must be used by policemen and women because of the threat to society posed by countless criminal predators. If there were no guns at all, recent headlines would be vastly different. Am I suggesting that the elimination of guns would eliminate crime altogether? Absolutely not. Cain killed Abel long before gunpowder came along. I am suggesting, however, that the world and its people would be vastly different and incredibly better than we are. Personally I am tired of the debate over gun control. I would like to hear plans for gun elimination. Will anyone do anything about this? Probably not. What I respectfully request is that you keep in mind that evil does not happen of itself. Bad exists only where and when good people do nothing. My fear lies not in the presence of evil but in the absence of good, not in the committed acts of bad people but in the omitted acts of good people. In this first spring of a new millennium, may goodness rise to its responsibility. Tom Hart Former Jersey City Councilman Ward D, the Heights