Columnist wrong, availability an issue

Walter Williams again misses the mark, attributing the ongoing slaughter of Americans by guns to an upsurge in immorality. He suggests that we were once a moral society, and that correlated to a lower death rate from guns.

Mankind is and was always immoral. In America's long history we've had the robber barons, slave labor, crooked politicians, the Mafia, street gangs, sweat shops, criminal endeavors legalized by Congress, land sharks, snake oil salesmen and millions of immoral acts that scandalized people did not discuss publicly. Much of it was never reported because it was either not against the law then, or there were not enough news sleuths, or reports were purposely omitted.

To say morality is the cause of our murderous present is copping out. We can't solve that. But we can be sure that guns will be available only to people who are intellectually, physically and emotionally able to use them properly. That process should be designed to cover prevention of suicides, accidents and intentional shootings. Distribution, transportation, storage and sale must all be tightly controlled.

Were that to be accomplished, I would agree with Walter that it should not matter what kind of weapon is owned, including high-firing-rate guns, and armor piercing ammo. It is the availability to the wrong owner that is behind most of the deaths.

Richard Cichanski

Palatine