Letter to the editor: Mayor Bill Peduto's gun moves misplaced

Well, it looks like Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto is at it again. He is determined to put those darn legal gun owners in their proper place — under the boots of “our” government (“Pittsburgh argues it has legal authority to regulate use of firearms.” ) He seems unable to count ordinal numbers above “first.”

But his intent is grossly misplaced. He should be directing his desire to save lives toward the medical profession.

In 2018, there were at least 100,000 deaths due to iatrogenic errors — medical mistakes. There are approximately 1.1 million MDs. That comes to 91 deaths per 1,000 members of the medicos.

There are at least 55 million legal gun owners in America, and annual gun deaths (suicides, accidental or intentional homicides) are below 40,000. That’s about 1 death per 1,000 gun owners.

Maybe Peduto needs a math major to tell the difference between those two numbers. Wait! Here comes one now. Hello, are you the famous Billy, of the seventh grade (note — ordinal number above first) at Trafford Middle School? Which number is worse, Billy, 91 per 1,000, or 1 per 1,000?

Billy’s reply — “91 is so much worse. And I want to change my name.”

Don Carrera

Irwin