"Too easy to get an arsenal" - In light of the increased violence in our schools (the Colorado and Pennsylvania shootings) and the continued access of guns to anyone who wants one, including the emotionally unstable, I ask people to contact their representatives in Congress to work harder on gun-control laws and school-safety programs. There is something terribly wrong when a milk delivery driver with a grudge can get a 9mm pistol, a shotgun, and a bolt-action rifle - and more than 600 rounds of ammunition - to shoot holes in so many lives. I know it won't cure the problem, but the children have a chance to live if one crazy man is attacking with one knife vs. a fully loaded automatic weapon. What are we waiting for? We are living the tragedy, and our children are dying. -- Lisa Bertini, Virginia Beach, VALisa, Lisa, Lisa - you are truly a product of the liberal establishment and have watched too many 'Oprah' shows. First, let's analyze your initial statement - "the continued access of guns to anyone who wants one, including the emotionally unstable" - because this is a total falsehood. There are laws on the books that eliminate the accessibility of firearms to the mentally ill. That's what the criminal background checks are for and are required for every lawful firearm transfer.
Secondly, your "milk delivery driver with a grudge" was a seriously deranged individual that apparently had no business walking the streets in the first place. People like this should be locked up forever and apparently, despite his previous heinous acts, he was allowed to matriculate in society. The fact that he wielded a firearm is actually immaterial to his crime. His victims were unarmed. He could have justs as easily slain them with a baseball bat.
Third, and this is where it shows your complete ignorance of your topic, of the three weapons that you listed (9mm pistol, shotgun, and bolt-action rifle), none of these are automatic weapons. It does make them sound more evil but the fact is that the pistol was semi-auto and perhaps the shotgun may have been semi-auto, but the bolt-action is just that - a bolt-action which requires racking a new cartridge manually after every shot. But you were going for the dramatic license, weren't you?
"Candidates, speak out!" - Today, like you, I'm thinking about the bullets ripping through the flesh of little girls and the shattering of their little skulls and bones. I am thinking about weeping moms and dads and the agony of sisters, brothers, and loved ones. This shouldn't be. Thereis a movement going on to create smoke-free public places. We do it for the health of overall society. I am not for getting rid of all guns. Hunters should hunt. People can protect themselves. However, the growing death toll of children and adults calls for urgent conversation. The conversation must begin with a search for the sources of this national tragedy. Businesses have a vested interest in selling as much of their products as possible for the great goal of personal profit, but when gun makers flood the market, more people die. Our culture has been fed a steady diet of revenge themes for decades. We've bought the "combo meal" of entitlement and victimization. We've glamorized guns and mixed violence with sex. Realizing lobbyists shape our public policy by influencing politicians, they must articulate their positions in light of the realities of this week. Will Sen. George Allen or Jim Webb facilitate a public debate between the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and the National Rifle Association? -- Greg West, Suffolk, VAGreg, did the Brady Center give you that overly dramatic opening statement for your letter? That's the stuff that Pulitzer Prizes are won on! Let's get past your drama and get to the heart of your diatribe.
Creating a smoke-free environment is a worthy cause because it is not right to infringe upon another's right to breathe clean air. Smokers can find places to smoke without making non-smokers have to breathe their exhalations. Infringing on another's right to keep and bear arms does not compute in your simile because no one is forcing non-gun owners to keep and bear arms. My keeping and bearing firearms is not forcing my neighbor to do the same against his will. So your comparison makes no sense whatsoever.
Furthermore, the 2nd Amendment guarantee isn't about hunting. It is about protecting ourselves. Protecting ourselves from sick milkmen and from a government to erodes our God-given rights and no longer is responsive to the people. That's why it is in the Constitution - because it is a GOD-GIVEN RIGHT that cannot be taken away by any man or government. You obviously believe in the Constitutional guarantees to freedom of the press and freedom of speech or you wouldn't have written your letter to the editor. Why don't you believe in the freedom to keep and bear arms? How many letters to the press do you think you'd get printed if the 2nd Amendment went away?
I see another issue we are going have to discuss here is economics. What businessman would be stupid enough to flood the market with a product that he can't possibly sell? No sensible businessman that wants to earn a profit and stay in business would manufacture more product than there is demand for. Maybe they didn't teach capitalism at that socialist school you attended, so I'll forgive you for your ignorance. Gun makers don't flood the market with guns any more than car makers flood the market with cars. They produce the quantity of product that they predict will sell out. There is nothing worse to a businessman than product that he can't move.
Your last couple of paragraphs are such a mish-mash of sociological terms and liberal buzzwords that I won't waste any time trying to decipher them. We glamorize alot of things unnecessarily, Greg. It really doesn't matter because everything under the sun that gets in the hands of a deranged person gets perverted. It doesn't matter whether it's a gun, a car, a knife, or a Big Mac. Some degenerate somewhere will find a way to kill someone.
Lisa and Greg, you need to focus on the common denominator is these crimes. The gun is merely the implement. The implement could have been a car. It could have been an airplane, as the 9/11 hijackers showed us. Any implement requires the interaction of a person to become an instrument of death. The criminal should be the object you revile, not the weapon.
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