Letter: The issue is people, not guns, in mass shootings

On April 17 and other recent editions, there were several editorial letters and cartoons about shootings. Most of them have the misguided thought that the issue is with an inanimate object, the gun.

We have over 20,000 gun control laws in the U.S., but they don't work because the gun isn't the issue. The true issue is the person pulling the trigger. If a mentally ill person wants to hurt people, they will use whatever they can, whether it's a car, knife, going online to look up how to build a bomb, etc.

California has some of the strictest gun laws and has 9 gun deaths per 100,000, but New Hampshire has very few gun laws and it has about 8 deaths per 100,000.

The true issue is the suicide rate (around 60% of gun deaths) and socioeconomic issues causing crimes. From 1990 to 2020, overall violent crime has dropped almost in half, but the number of guns sold has almost doubled. Again, the problem is not with the inanimate object. Until you deal with the people side of the issue, you will still have the problem.

Many of the letters say, we should ban "assault rifles," but assault rifles, i.e., machine or automatic fire guns, are not available to the public. The AR-15 type rifles are semi-automatic just like many other types of hunting rifles and are not any more dangerous than those other rifles. In addition, FBI data indicates that rifles are used only in about 3% of all gun deaths.

A CCN article states "From what we know about mass shooters, they tend to pick targets that allow them the best chance of success." If we had well trained armed people in these locations and it was publicized, they would no longer be targets.

Bruce Bohren

Gurnee