LETTER: Banning guns is not the solution

Steve Wheat, in a letter to the editor, says there is no record of an armed citizen stopping a shooting.

Check on the internet and you will find that is not true. Also, since almost all shootings take place in gun-free zones, we can’t know if armed citizens could stop an attack.

There is no evidence that armed citizens would cause innocent bystanders to be hit. But wouldn’t one bystander injury be better than 40 or 50 deaths because no one was armed except the bad guy?

Anyone who gets a permit to carry should be trained in firearm use. I was trained by the military and have a carry permit. Lots of people are not qualified to carry.

Banning any type of firearm will have little effect on killings because it is easy to smuggle guns across our borders. The “do-gooders” thought banning liquor would stop all alcohol-related problems, and look what happened. It didn’t take us long to figure out banning doesn’t work.

Wheat uses Australia as an example of effective gun banning. Australia is a totally different society than ours. They don’t have Mexico to smuggle guns across their borders. They have very strict immigration laws. They have far fewer minorities in Australia. Eighty percent of U.S. prison populations are minorities. Also, 80 percent of crime in the U.S. is committed by minorities. Knowing this, are you willing to make laws to keep minorities from owning guns? I think not.

Where in the Second Amendment does it say people can only own muskets? It says, “a well armed militia being necessary for a free state.” The militia was defined as all citizens and “well armed” should mean with best type of firearms available.

Join the National Rifle Association and you will find that it has been lobbying for years against the mentally ill owning guns.

Just saying “ban guns” is a “feel good” solution, and no one can come up with a way to actually do the job. So let’s all work with the NRA to come up with a workable solution. They know that if the Second Amendment fails, the others will be very hard to defend.

—Richard J. Reed, Kila