Dear Editor:

Interesting Letter to the Editor the other day, from a local Clergyman, who perceived Mrs Clinton as a threat to the Second Amendment and our right to defend ourselves.  The ironic thing about American Christians is that we can quote the Bible chapter and verse, but our actions are often a refutation of everything Jesus preached.  Who might have gone along with taking a cudgel to a burglar but would’ve absolutely rejected assault rifles, bazookas, and grenades as a response.  One should, apparently, pay lip service to trusting in God, but rely on a howitzer?.

Disregarding Jesus, as we often do, there is a premise in international law called Proportionality.  It means the North Koreans can jump up and down and call us every name in the book, but we can’t retaliate by nuking them.  If an unarmed burglar comes to your house, you should be able to smack him with your cudgel, but you shouldn’t be able to blow him to smithereens.

And if Proportionality doesn’t appeal to you and you’re worried about the burglar being armed, given that most of us have no military training, let alone experience — nonsense seen on TV doesn’t count — in clearing a house, room by room, perhaps with kids out there somewhere, perhaps in the dark, you’d probably still be better off with the baseball bat.

Personally, I’m going to continue to assume the guy isn’t carrying. And Jesus may have crossed my mind in deciding that, but it’s mostly just perspective: I wouldn’t want to escalate a simple burglary into a death. His or mine.

Pete Westover,

Russell