Look at the perpetrator, not the gun

Date: 1/23/2013

Why do the left-wing, gun-hating, do-gooders always look at the gun instead of the perpetrator doing the horrific deed? Senator Diane Feinstein and others in government have a fixation about guns and the passing of more restrictive gun laws to supposedly stop and reduce gun violence. How about outlawing hammers? After all, more deaths were caused by the lethal use of hammers than by guns in the past year in our country. Or, how about ordinary kitchen knives, should they be banned from everyday use because some nut may use one to kill or maim someone? How about the automobile, should it be banned because sometimes it is used as a lethal weapon by a mentally disturbed person? Of course, the answer to these questions is no. It's not the instrument or tool that causes the problem; it's the person using it who is to blame.

Nowhere in the national media did anyone bring up the mental state of James Holmes or Adam Lanza or any other person committing mass murder with a gun. Everyone in the media merely jumped on the ridiculous need for more gun laws. There is no state or local jurisdiction in our country which gives a permit or allows a mentally disturbed person to buy or own a gun of any kind. One question that hasn't been asked in the Sandy Hook School massacre is this: why did Nancy Lanza have guns in her home when she apparently knew that her son, Adam, was mentally disturbed? Has anyone even bothered to broach this subject?

One final note: why do the weekly violent deaths of many African-Americans in the Chicago, Illinois area go unreported in the national media? Hundreds have died or been severely maimed in the past year alone. Are these people of less importance than the people in Colorado, Connecticut or Arizona? Let's face it, Chicago already has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the United States; however, these restrictive laws haven't prevented gun violence there.

Please remember that every gun owner who has a legitimate firearms permit is a law abiding citizen. He or she has to be, in order to have a legal firearms permit.

Albert P. Bushey

East Longmeadow