The first letter notes that 1989 telephone survey in Texas revealed that 54 percent of the households with children had a firearm. Fifteen percent of the homes with both firearms and elementary school-aged children had an unsupervised child after elementary school dismissal. The second letter presents international data indicating that homicide rates are not significantly correlated with firearm availability. The reply from the authors of a previous article notes that handgun availability is strictly controlled in countries such as Switzerland and Israel, where military weapons are widely available, and that handguns accounted for three-fourths of the firearm-related homicides in the United States. In addition, homicide rates in the United States should be compared only with those in industrialized countries rather than developing countries, where very different factors precipitate violence.