Control gun violence with practical ideas

Control gun violence with practical ideas

I have been reading many of the comments on the gun control issue and find that we need to get less emotional and more practical if we want to help reduce gun violence.

The most ridiculous of the arguments is we need to own guns to protect us from an oppressive government. Do we really believe that owning a semiautomatic gun would be a match for a smart bomb? Yet many of the same people offering this argument are also opposed to any cut in the defense budget, which in essence means they are paying to arm the very people they want firearms to protect themselves against.

On the other side, banning the assault weapons and larger clips seems to be, to some, the answer to all of the problems. The fact is that other than a few spectacular tragedies, most murders are committed with handguns and standard rifles.

Let’s concentrate on the real issues that might help such as background checks and revising our privacy laws to allow entry into the system of the names of the severely mentally disabled. I am sure that with some calm intelligent discussion between the two sides even better approaches might be discovered.

Bill Getchius

St. Charles