Yes, it is. He's obviously well educated and artistic but even with his initial socially liberal mindset he's intelligent enough to recognize a need for self-preservation and to stop looking at criminals as objects of pity and concern and instead, to see them as what they are; modern day pirates.
I like the fact that the writer also recognizes that offering a street thug a job, some credit or even some therapy isn't the solution to crime and criminal predators. Not allowing them to succeed with victimizing people through force is the solution, and that requires armed citizens and some dead criminals. Unfortunately, in todays liberal judicial environment shooting a would-be mugger would probably get you a jail term and a lawsuit from the mugger.
Beats death from some gangster with a knife looking for drug money but an awful high price to pay to maintain some measure of personal security. I'm glad the writer was able to just walk away from the wounded mugger and wounding him was probably safer, legally, if not on a practical basis.
I'm not a gun owner but will be if I ever see the need, and the way things are going, that could be soon. As the letter writer said, they (street criminals) do it (rape, rob and intimidate) because no one stops them. Still the case almost 20 years after the letter was written and most attitudes haven't changed much. I've always claimed the Second Amendment was my 'permission' to own a firearm, I simply didn't choose to exercise that right. Unless we start making the law a threat again and stop rewarding criminality with understanding and joke sentences, gun ownership by private citizens may become a necessity in many places. So be it.
You know what they say about rights not exercised don't you?
EBUCK
When it comes to the choice of what to do when confronted with imminent personal harm/death and you are carrying ... I'd rather be judged by twelve than carried by six. Fregards.
None of my business, but if you wait too long, you may be too late...