It isn't the gun or the flag

Someone gets upset with America seemingly coming down hard on the Confederate flag after the Charlestown shooting, but doesn't understand why the same vitriol is not applied to guns, so she writes a letter to the Daily Herald.

From that letter: "Really? Seriously? This angry young man killed nine people with a gun. Where is the outrage about the hardware used to commit murder? Where is the report about what will be done to stem this type of violence? How soon will it take to again ask the citizenry about what they want done regarding gun control?"

Notice anything? Not a word mentioned about the shooter's affection for the neo-Nazi-style organization he belonged to ... until even they kicked him out for his extremely radical mindset.

I wonder if any of those churchgoers in Charleston owned guns. It would be difficult to believe that none of them did. So tell me: why didn't any of them come to church and start shooting up the place?

It's simple, really. It isn't the gun or the flag, ma'am, it's what's going on inside the person's head. Take away the guns, and some will simply find another piece of "hardware" to appease their mindset.

Would you have preferred he started tossing homemade hand grenades? Fatalities would likely have been higher, not to mention severe damage to the church building itself. But, if no gun was involved, no big deal, eh?

Bottom line: if gun control was the ultimate fix, or even simply a good fix, then places like Chicago and Washington, D.C., would be model cities of peace and tranquillity regarding gun crimes. Unfortunately, the opposite is the truth.

John Babush

Big Rock