Letter: More gun control won't work

There is not enough space here to point out all of the issues in Susan Estrich's Dec. 6 column.

She starts with gun death data and ends with "Or would we sit back and do nothing about it, which is what we are doing now?"

Her column ignores the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act signed on June 25, 2022, which included additional money for mental health (60% of gun deaths are suicides), school safety, and more.

She states "Why are we not doing the simple things that reasonable people can agree on to increase gun safety and reduce gun violence."

Since it takes a person to fire a gun, this is a people issue. People issues, including mental health, are never going to be simple.

Crime is another issue that won't have a simple solution. Who's a reasonable person, only those that agree with her?

She claims no one is going to have "outright bans and the confiscation of hunting rifles," but right now politicians are talking about banning the most popular hunting rifle, the AR-15 type, even though less than 0.0025% of the 20 million AR-15 type rifles were used to kill someone based on FBI homicide data.

Politicians have called for confiscating these types of rifles.

She implies that we should have "training, licensing, and regular inspections" as we do with automobiles. Driving an automobile is a privilege. Owning a gun is a right.

Here's a training idea, provide age-appropriate gun safety training in school.

Will people really want the police barging into their homes to inspect their guns?

Also, one of the first steps in confiscating guns is to know who has them such as through licensing.

Near the end of her column, she basically calls people against more gun control racists.

Bruce Bohren

Gurnee