Children Killed by Guns - Stopping the Scourge - NYTimes.com "Children and Guns: The Hidden Toll" ("Bearing Arms" series, front page, Sept. 29) brought back painful memories. Exactly 40 years and one month ago today, my older brother, then 12, was killed when he was at a friend's house and the two of them found a .22 rifle, unlocked and loaded. Predictably, play, and my brother's death from a gunshot to the head, followed. It is haunting to think of the thousands of children who have suffered similar accidental deaths in the decades since. And it is appalling that the National Rifle Association and the gun manufacturers" lobby have consistently opposed both research into accidental gun deaths and common-sense safety steps that might reduce such deaths. According to your article, the N.R.A. claims that such safety steps would make self-defense more difficult when intruders break into homes. So I have two simple and related questions for the gun lobby: Do you have any research to suggest that more lives are saved by allowing loaded guns to be freely accessible in homes where there are children than are lost because of accidental deaths? And why do you oppose research into determining whether simple steps save lives (like requiring that guns kept in homes with children be kept locked and unloaded)? You have performed a necessary service in emphasizing the unnecessary deaths, injuries and destroyed lives based on our country's gun culture. I have contributed to several gun control groups, but have come to realize that while they do some good, they are basically ineffective, because their goal is gun control. Gun control concedes the National Rifle Association's contention that the Second Amendment gives most Americans an absolute right to own or use guns. This is not true. I suggest that the phrase "gun control" be replaced with "no guns." If such a notion were carried out, this would free us of the shame of legalized killings. The first person I knew who died of gunshot, back in 1948, was a high school friend, a 15-year-old who accidentally shot his identical twin brother to death while cleaning a shotgun. By the time I was 30 I knew 20 people who had died from guns in the home. But then, I am from Florida.