GUNS: Gang-banger factor

Regarding Sholeh Patrick’s Oct. 5 column: By the second paragraph she asks “What’s going on?” One thing that is not taken into account is the amount of “mass shootings” and “level of gun use against innocents” is based upon a flawed premise.

As a law abiding citizen, I grow weary of being blamed for gang bangers in places like Chicago who are killing each other along with the innocents in their line of fire. They are criminals killing each other. Why don’t some of the white politician leaders in Illinois care about their predominantly black constituent shooting victims, or do black lives only matter when police officers shoot them? Apparently one of the most gun restrictive states and city in the country needs people like me to feel guilty when criminals and psychos run amuck. I know cops from up there; they are trying to do their jobs. How about we hold the self-serving politicians like Rahm Emanuel and their city council to some level of accountability?

I agree that some answers may not be easy, but there are some answers that are quite easy and were once employed in this country, which leads me to comparisons to the rest of the world. We are not a collectivist society. Any “collective” must be comprised of individuals, all with their unique interests, skills, desires and thoughts. Individualism along with individual responsibility and accountability are what has made America great, and a magnet for people who desire freedom from their socialist/progressive/Communist/Nazi governments. Those same collectivist-type governments always devolve into despotism as such a system requires all to conform to what is “best” for the group, with of course, some ruler who deigns it upon himself to dictate what that “best” is, usually at the point of guns that only the “leaders” now possess. Having just fought a revolution against the most powerful government and army in the world, our Founders “got” this. For a more current view, how are things working out for Venezuelans?

Her last paragraph states that Americans pay a heavy price for individual freedom instead of a trade-off for safety and security. To paraphrase one of our Founders, those that will trade freedom for safety and security will have neither.

ROBERT B. SMITH

Hayden