MY TURN: The problem with gun violence

The problem with rapid fire assault weapon violence is pretty straightforward: by the time we identify who is going to misuse the technology, too many people are dead.

There are basically four ways to approach the problem: 1) do nothing and offer prayers and condolences, 2) arm everybody, 3) try to personality profile potential mis-users and go after them before they can act, or 4) get these guns off the street to whatever extent we can.

None of these approaches is perfect. But some are more likely to work than others.

Prayers and condolences may be heart-felt and sincere, but they do nothing to stop the behavior.

Arming everybody under a second amendment ‘carte blanche’ just ensures more gunfire, whether criminal or just incompetent or accidental collateral damage. This sort of thing happens even with highly trained law enforcement. Who thinks there would be less of it if we were all “packing?”

Personality profiling sounds good, but in a free society do we really want to act on what somebody MIGHT do? People get mad and frustrated all the time and say things they would never act on. Are we going to arrest everyone who gives somebody the finger for cutting them off in traffic? For a decal in the back window of their truck that says, “F_CK your feelings?” I don’t think so. Our country is based on taking responsibility for what you do, not for what someone thinks you MIGHT do.

That leaves making a concerted effort to get these kinds of guns and ammo clips out of circulation. There is a reason why you can’t legally walk around the Safeway with a purse full of hand grenades, even if you don’t plan on pulling the pins. There’s a reason why you can’t walk into McDonald's with a rocket launcher on your shoulder, even though the person behind the counter might be taking your order from inside a tank. (For those of you who have already lost your minds, that was a joke.).

This is not a joke: These are weapons of war. I can already hear the hue and cry. Save it. The people who are in the best position to stop these atrocities, even if too often too late, are trained law enforcement. Do they need more training? Maybe so. But we are better off as a civil society having trained law enforcement handle these situations than having a largely untrained and too-often misguided citizenry try to handle it.

The war on drugs involves going after the growers, the manufacturers, the transporters, the distributors, the sellers and the users. It also involves going after the substance itself. The substance of mass shootings is the gun and the ammo.

Get them out of circulation to whatever degree we can. It’s just common sense.

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Stephen Bruno is a Dalton Gardens resident.