GUNS: Explaining violence prevention

Bob Hunt’s ungentlemanly personal attack on Alice Arambarri (My Turn, Aug. 31) does not merit response, but I think it is important to talk about gun violence prevention efforts in Idaho.

I am dedicated to gun safety, an essential precept to which I was introduced as an officer in the U.S. Army. As a veteran, I am still committed to weapons safety.

There is, indeed, a Second Amendment right, interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Heller decision, for individuals to own firearms. I have no argument with that. However, given the dramatic increase in firearms-related murder, suicides and unintentional shootings by children resulting from unsecured guns, the importance of securing firearms is paramount, including the use of trigger locks. They can prevent children finding and playing with a parent’s weapon; they can delay a potential suicide’s rash decision. Trigger locks work. I assume that’s why the Coeur d’Alene Police Department provides them free-of-charge.

I was reared in rural Post Falls. My parents owned two rifles and a handgun. Most of my neighbors own weapons. What I advocate for is the safe use and storage of firearms, the passage of legislation for better background checks for gun purchases, and for a red flag law to create an Extreme Risk Protection Order, which empowers family members and law enforcement to petition courts to temporarily limit a person’s access to guns if he, or she, is proven to be a danger to him or herself, or to others. Is that so unreasonable?

KAREN CHARBONNEAU

Post Falls