Taking aim at gun stats

I was in Montreal recently and I picked up the October 1 edition of your tabloid. Upon reading the cover story, "Under the Gun" by Carl Amabili, I was astounded to find out that "the annual death toll from gunfire in recent years has been approaching 40,000" in America. Mr. Amabili should check his "facts."

According to the FBI--as reported in the May 25, 1998 edition of U.S. News & World Report--the murder rate in the U.S. dropped to 19,645 in 1996 with an additional nine-per-cent drop in 1997. There were 1,400 accidental firearm-related deaths in 1996. By the way, the murders involving firearms accounted for a minority of the total murders.

I would think that you would be interested in having your writers refrain from using statistics to further their causes when they are so patently misleading.

-Phil Blum

Los Angeles, California

(Ed's note: According to the United States Department of Health and Human Services, there are an average of 30,000 firearm-related deaths in the U.S. each year. The Mirror article in question stated that "the annual death toll from gunfire in recent years has been approaching 40,000," based on figures compiled by the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence and the Violence Policy Center in the United States.)

Scissor-happy over campaign signs

As thousands of campaign signs made their ascent up the lampposts of our city, I thought of the new pair of heavy-duty, left-handed scissors I'd bought to help make the set for my four year old's dance show last spring. Wouldn't it be wonderful if I could put them to good use once again, this time to rid my beautiful Montreal of these unwelcome paper gargoyles? Snip, snip, snip: what a wonderful sound that would be!

And if the municipal politics quiz in the Mirror is correct ["Mario Tremblay for mayor," Sept. 17], there would soon be an army of gleeful scissor-hands out there helping to bring about the Liberation of the Lampposts. It wouldn't be a question of partisan loyalty--we've all had enough of that--we would cut them all down! But I think I would take particular pleasure in dismounting the faces of our mayoral candidates. Their wry smiles all seem to say: "Vote for one of us! You have no choice!"

-Gyde F. Shepherd

Attention idiots!

All those people who have their heads up their asses really have to stop pissing me off! Every time I pick up the Mirror (religiously), I read this bullshit about how this guy's an idiot and this chick's an idiot... you guys are the idiots! Just let the f$%^ing writers do their jobs and if you don't like what they have to say, don't read the flippin' paper! I like what they have to say... and besides, it's not as if they're advocating murderers or rapists! So stop acting like they are!

-Noah Sidel

Montreal, wheatgrass-free zone

After moving around the continent far too many times, I just want to tell you that Montreal is probably the greatest city in all of the USA and Canada.

Restaurants stay open until the early morning (they close at 10 or 11 in San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Vancouver and Victoria), you can get around on a bike (as opposed to L.A., which is only the beginning of things that suck about that city), you can smoke inside (try doing that anywhere west of Quebec), the people are memorable, Montreal parties in the streets (so does San Francisco, but when we do it here you have to wear vinyl or leather or else people look at you weirdly), smoked meat just means smoked meat, you smell coffee in the morning not wheatgrass juice, rent is still affordable.

I miss the gravel skiers on the mountain and the cigarette factories. There are more real music shows than there are raves (techno is fun... when you have other options). Another weird thing: nobody in California seems to have heard of date squares--now tourtière, poutine and sugar pie, I can understand not having made it across, but date squares?!

You don't know how good you have it until you leave it. So before anybody starts to complain about some shitty little problem with the city, remember it could be worse.

-Domini Lemire-Elmore

San Francisco, California