GUNS: Safety must come first

When I was young, the adults in my community agreed that protecting the lives of our children and families was more important than pretty much anything. Adults sacrificed their wants to protect the well-being of our families. Adults didn’t look to blame other folks. They took responsibility, “did what had to be done” and fixed the problem. Us kids, we were the foolish ones who made excuses and avoided our responsibilities.

Today, our children are murdered in their schools. First-graders who should be learning to read have their heads blown off in their classrooms. High schoolers bleed to death in the school library. What do we do? We make excuses. The biased “liberal media” is making too big a deal of it. This wouldn’t happen if people prayed in school. We should arm teachers, even though we can’t even give them enough pencils and paper. We should do anything but sacrifice some convenience in order to protect our families. Nonsense!

It’s time to grow up and treat guns like the dangerous tools they are. Not toys. Tools. Treat them like cars. You can have a gun once you prove that you know how to use it safely and demonstrate that you are committed to doing so. If you become a threat, you lose the license. This would help protect our community and is consistent with the Second Amendment. Strict licensing has been shown to save lives. It’s time for us to take this step to protect our families.

CRAIG COOPER

Hayden