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Letters to the Editor should be exclusive to The Globe and Mail. Include your name, address and daytime phone number. Try to keep letters to fewer than 150 words. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. To submit a letter by e-mail, click here: letters@globeandmail.com

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The data on fear

Re We Need Data First, Not An Outright Ban On Handguns (Aug. 14): John Ibbitson argues against banning handguns “out of nothing more than unfounded fear.” He calls for more data first, because “imposing such a ban without evidence that legally acquired handguns pose a risk simply panders to prejudice and fear.”

Well, I admit my prejudice. I am deeply suspicious of anyone who wants to own a device designed for no purpose than to kill and maim. And certainly I fear the objects of their peculiar fetish. Who wouldn’t? How can any private citizen regard something as foul as a firearm with anything other than fear and loathing?

Even if a ban saved only one life in 50 years, call me a snowflake, but I think it would be well worth any inconvenience, or even distress, to people who want to own a handgun. Even if it doesn’t save lives, we could at least take some pride in the fact that, as a society, we finally expressed our revulsion at the very existence of these things. That’s my prejudice, and I’m sticking to it.

David Prosser, Stratford, Ont.

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John Ibbitson has it backward: “Unfounded fear” is what causes city people to keep loaded guns in their homes, beside their beds, in their glove boxes and handbags.

Dot Quiggin, Toronto

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While a handgun ban may hoodwink the public into thinking that its safety is enhanced, there are U.S. statistics on gun killings that show such bans are useless (What We Can Learn From California Gun Laws – Aug. 13).

Jiti Khanna, Vancouver

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John Ibbitson asks, “How often is a handgun that was legally acquired in Canada used in a crime? We have no idea.”

Well, the reason “we have no idea” is because nobody cares. If you’re caught in a hail of bullets from crossfire between rival gang members, and the loved one standing beside you drops dead, are you going to ask yourself, “I wonder if the handgun that did this was purchased legally in Canada? Was the shooter licensed?”

A three-year minimum sentence for possession of a handgun and ammunition in a public place would inconvenience neither the gun collectors, nor the target shooters referenced by Mr. Ibbitson, nor farmers, nor hunters.

And impose it on first offenders, too.

Michael Fox, Stratford, Ont.

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The proposition that handguns possessed or acquired illegally are more often used in crime than legally owned guns only confirms there are just too many guns out there. This makes it much more difficult for law enforcement to monitor and control this scourge.

Handguns are deadly and easy to conceal. They are not baseball cards to be collected and traded.

John Ibbitson says that while addressing the various causes of crime would be costly and controversial, banning handguns would be “quick and easy and popular.” So what am I missing?

Cherie Hill, Mississauga

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Ban ammunition. Gun owners would have the right to own a gun. In order to fire it, they would have to make application to purchase bullets.

Stephen A. Crocker, Edmonton

Targeting re-election?

Re Trudeau Promises Firearms Plan For Election Campaign (Aug. 14): So Justin Trudeau will announce new gun-control measures as part of his election campaign. Surely the time to do that was immediately after or before the escalating gun violence in Toronto, not now when he appears to be trying to capitalize on those tragic deaths as a way to be re-elected. This is callous.

Rob Adams, Toronto

Choices in Kashmir

Re In Kashmir, India Tightens Its Grip (Aug. 13): It was India that went to the United Nations, and it was there in 1948 that a resolution was passed, calling for a plebiscite/referendum in Kashmir on whether the people wished to accede to India or Pakistan.

Several wars and many thousands of lost lives later, that referendum has never been held. There lies the root of the problem. Today we are discussing India’s latest moves and trying to figure out if they fit the Chinese or the Israeli playbook, when we should be focusing on a core principle of international law: people’s right to self-determination.

Forcing people to live with you at gun point is neither civilized nor democratic. If Quebec can have referendums, so can Kashmir.

Shahid Salam, Toronto

Telemedicine’s touch

Re Experts Call For Better Digital Health Access (Aug. 14): Mark Dermer is reported as saying that in the near future, the large majority of medical visits will take place online and “it won’t be just the stereotypical millennial.”

Before we rush to embrace this future (or are coerced into it by those in power), where is the evidence that this is going to benefit people? Where are the published studies of pilot projects on clinics using this kind of telemedicine, so we physicians know what conditions are being treated and the outcomes, including cost effectiveness and patient satisfaction?

How often do telemedicine consults include “please follow up with your family doctor”? All the data I have seen are survey results about “what people want.”

Alejandro Jadad, founder of the Centre for Global eHealth Innovation at University Health Network in Toronto, says that patients do not want to be in a health system that treats them “like a piece of meat on a production line.” Is being “examined” by a disembodied clinician on the computer screen somehow more patient-centred?

I am happy to “embrace” technology when it fulfills a need – specialist consultations in remote areas, for instance – but what we all need now is more of a personal touch, not less.

Jyothi Jayaraman, MD, Vancouver

Keep fares grounded

Re Transat Shareholders Urged By ISS To Support Air Canada Offer (Aug. 14): Does the Competition Bureau have to wait for the Transat shareholders to accept Air Canada’s offer? Why is the Liberal government not stepping in now to protect Canadians from the predatory increase in fares that are sure to follow?

Laurie Kochen, Toronto

A burden unshared

Re Some Disabilities Are Invisible (Aug. 13): First Person essayist Alison Hodgins, a frequent traveller for her business, says she feels guilty when she has to refuse someone’s request to help lift a suitcase. She doesn’t want to go into detail about her back injury as the reason why she can’t assist.

We observe this dilemma often in baggage areas. My motto to my husband is: “If they pack it, they can lift it. Or seek out and pay a porter to lug their oversized suitcases.” We, or more often, he, does not need to chance an injury by being chivalrous. No explanation necessary.

Linda Ploen, Burlington, Ont.

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