Date: 3/1/2018
Some thoughts on guns and our current gun problem:
1. People should not be allowed to store guns in their homes. Instead they should be stored in a municipal lock up under the control of legally responsible officials. If a person wanted to use their gun for hunting, they would have to sign it out after showing their gun license and hunting license. No automatic weapons would be allowed to be signed out. Someone who owned more than five gun weapons would be required to be examined by competent medical authorities.
2. Guns are deadlier than knives and axes. The trauma from a gunshot wound is more often lethal than from a stab wound. Knives and axes should be kept out of the hands of children and the mentally ill.
3. If we had a genuine national health care system, there would be fewer mentally ill folks walking around without care and supervision. Within twenty years of setting up such a universal system, we would have a healthier population and all those who needed mental and/or physical care would be getting it.
4. Access to guns is the main problem not access to mental health care. (Most people with mental health issues are not violent.) On guns consider this analogy. If we had ray guns that could vaporize people, would we be claiming that “ray guns do not vaporize people, people vaporize people?” Think about it.
5. Expelling students with behavioral problems from school is not the solution. They need special programs and assistance.
6. We need to repeal the Second Amendment. The militia was largely viewed as a way for states to police their slave populations and go after runaway slaves. The militias were regulated.
7. The National Rifle Association needs to be audited by the Internal Revenue Service. We need to know where their money comes from and who is sending it to them.
8. To what extent does American culture contribute to the violence we are witnessing in these recent shootings? We have Hollywood films that glorify assassins, murderers, wars and various types of carnage.
9. Our current military adventures in the Middle East, which seem endless, perpetuate a view of the world that is filled with danger and which argues in turn that the danger can only be controlled by the massive application of American firepower. How do we teach the virtues of a peaceful life in a civilized community, surrounded by militarism and violence in the name of peace?
10. Now is not the time for despair, nor is it a time for just thoughts and prayers. This campaign can be won, but it will require determined effort over the next few years. A coalition of concerned citizens can change the rules and the conditions under which we live and under which too many of our fellow citizens and children have already died.
John J. Fitzgerald
Longmeadow
