No to 'gun laws'; yes to 'gun control'

Walter Williams recently editorialized that weapons haven't changed, again suggesting his imagined decline in human ethics and morality as problems to be addressed before guns can be made safe. Two untruths. He previously used a fix-morality theme to address other social problems.

I again point out that humans have been inhumane, immoral and threatening to each other since Adam and Eve's clan. Today the public feels freer than in the past to talk openly about unspeakable immoral and criminal behavior, fostered by a widespread and technically adept media.

Can we say today we are worse than when massive slavery, wars of annihilation and cannibalism were commonplace? How about human sacrifice? Lynchings?

And really Walter, you missed it. Guns and other weapons indeed have changed. When I was a kid, I heard about street gangs. They made their own zip guns. Today they have AR15s.

No Walter, let's not wait for the moralizing of the human race. Too many people who should not have them get access to guns, period. I don't have a problem with the guns, only with who is permitted to use them.

I acknowledge the recent writer who points out the laborious process of today's controls on gun ownership. The urgent need is not to tighten them further, but to apply controls to all transfers of possession, from the point of manufacture to the end user.

And let's quit spouting ridiculous slogans about "cold dead hands", and "bad guys/good guys", which are intended to replace thinking. They don't protect innocent lives.

Richard Cichanski

Palatine