LETTER: The Gun Or The Culprit?

Animals may kill for food; however, man, the apex animal, kills his own kind for power, greed, revenge, sport and pleasure.

Man has strived to develop and expand weapons of death and destruction from the stone age to the nuclear age with astounding success.

Our country’s fathers, in 1776, scribed the Constitution and the Bill of Rights (first 10 amendments). The order of the rights were specific: the first being the right of speech and the second the right to bear arms to protect the constitution (government) and our rights.

Guns do not kill! Someone behind the gun, who loaded it and fired it, is responsible for the act; The type of gun does not alter or change the responsibility of the act.

Massacres are not new; but, the circumstances and targets are new. The frequency, violence, and atrocious nature of the deeds in recent years has generated a cry of concern and outrage. The control of one implement of death is not possible let alone all the instruments of death.

The first conclusion is the culprit must be mentally ill. This is a given as very few persons awake and put mass killings on their bucket list, plan it and carry it out. The significant problem is the person behind the weapon and this person has lived among us expressing little or no outward signs of mental chaos.

The continued neurological and psychological research to better understand the normal as abnormal functions of the mind and what internal and external factors influences those functions may be more important and practical than the attempted control of any one instrument of death.

The call for and the establishment of gun control is like an elementary teacher holding their class hostage for the act of a classmate’s transgression.

I could be wrong now but I don’t think so!

Philip A. Long