LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Gun background checks necessary
12/22/2013Thanks to Blade Editor David Kushma for his Dec. 15 op-ed column about reasonable gun control measures, especially strong background-check requirements before anyone is permitted to purchase a gun (“A year after Newtown, deadly status quo too often prevails on guns”).
I am not a gun owner, but I believe in the rights of people to own guns as protected by the Second Amendment.
That said, it is sad to see the gun lobby continue to oppose reasonable background checks before any gun is purchased from any source. Background checks are not the cure, but at least they may prevent some guns from ending up in the wrong hands.
I am not sure what the breaking point will be on the issue of gun control, but I fear it may involve a mass slaughter of many more people than the number who died in Newtown, Conn., a year ago.
Eventually, the public will demand some sort of reasonable measures to control the proliferation of guns in this country. But apparently, that time is not yet here.
R. GREGORY STEIN
Sylvania
An armed public is a safe public
In his column about the anniversary of the Sandy Hook massacre, Mr. Kushma states: “If you are a legal, responsible gun owner — and that puts you in the overwhelming majority — Big Bad Government is not coming to grab your guns, whatever the corporate gun lobby tells you in its fund-raising and political appeals.”
That would be news to residents of Cook County, Ill., where the Wall Street Journal reported in July that teams of armed officers were going door-to-door grabbing guns from people who had failed to renew their state firearms registration cards on time. And some still have to ask why gun owners in free states oppose registration schemes and firearms ownership databases.
Mr. Kushma is wrong in his assertion that nothing has been done since Newtown. Around the country and here in Ohio, more and more schools have chosen to allow armed good guys to protect our kids, correctly recognizing that the faster an attacker is confronted by an armed responder, the fewer people die.
That fact was borne out this month in Colorado, where a student with a gun took his own life just 80 seconds into his attack, after he was about to be confronted by an armed school resource officer.
Many potential victims are alive thanks to that good guy with a gun, but people such as Mr. Kushma would have preferred the killer had 10 minutes to carry out his plans before police arrived. Shame on him.
CHAD BAUS
Archbold, Ohio
Power of money weakens minds
I thank Mr. Kushma for being a voice of reason on an issue that has been mucked up in hyperbole and stirred by incendiary rhetoric.
Thus far, common sense and rational thought have been no match for the National Rifle Association’s well-financed strategy of obfuscation and obstinacy.
Most Americans — including NRA members — believe that reasonable solutions to the epidemic of gun violence in our country are attainable. Most Americans — including those of us who favor gun control — do not wish to overturn the Second Amendment.
Most Americans simply want decisions to be made by Congress that are the result of moral intent and rational thought. How sad that the power of money seems to have obliterated such an idealistic notion.
RICK VOLKMER
Perrysburg
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Confiscating guns would be next
Mr. Kushma drags out all the emotional tropes in an effort to persuade us that more gun control is needed. No proposed law would have prevented the Newtown massacre, nor other recent gun-related tragedies.
The proposal for universal background checks is really about universal gun registration, which may lead to confiscation, despite Mr. Kushma’s assurances.
Thanks, but no thanks.
JIM DUNMYER
Temperance, Mich.