Letter: Make it possible to see early evidence of issues

The events of Uvalde, Texas last week are part of a continuing saga of young people with obvious anger and family issues not being acted upon. In the past 10 years these are almost carbon copies of one another, save possibly for the number of guns or people involved.

* They are all teen to early 20 boys or men.

*They almost all have had clear broken family issues.

* They all had early issues of violence and anger outbursts.

None of these issues can be resolved by issuing a gun permit to those individuals.

And yet in many cases they were. Why is that?

It is complicated and yet not. When doing a full background search by law enforcement one thing to remember, depending upon the state involved, minor-age issues below 18 can be blocked or expunged from search. This varies by state as well.

So, in many cases an 18-year-old requesting a gun permit and having to go through a background check, may only have less than a year of visible activity.

This needs to change nationally. And that is the complicated part. 50 States all need to agree. If an early pattern of issues exists, a stay could be granted until age 21 and reevaluated at that time.

Admittedly, this doesn't resolve other youth gun issues that are illegal, but it would at least narrow the window and not have a background search almost be complicit in murders.

Richard Francke

Bartlett