Can't keep guns from troubled people

South Carolina has done the right thing in taking down the Confederate flag and retiring it in a museum for future generations to view as a piece of history.

At issue is the fact that it provoked a gunman to engage in a mass shooting. But did it? The alleged shooter is reported to have been a drug user with mental problems that were missed when he bought the gun.

Mental aberrations also seem to be the common thread in all the many mass shootings we have been having around the country. Virginia Tech is a notable example that should have been a learning tool but was not. A teacher became suspicious about a student who constantly wrote strange essay themes on guns and murder and alarmingly brought it up to the principal's attention.

Somehow it was never followed up on and in time this student's verbal fantasies became a campus mass shooting reality leading to 32 dead and 17 wounded. It would make one wonder how he could have amassed an arsenal of 3 pistols and 400 rounds of ammunition in spite of having a questionable quirky personality that even made some fellow students uneasy.

Unfortunately the person with the wisdom of a Solomon has yet to be come forward with a foolproof plan to keep guns away from troubled individuals.

Walter Santi

Bloomingdale