I've been listening to the gun control debate on our local radio stations, and reading about it in the local papers.
Most of the discussion is focused on 'school safety,' even though there are enough mass shootings at other venues to warrant talking of public safety when it comes to ownership of assault weapons, bump stocks and large-capacity magazine clips.
Are assault weapon supporters worried that school shootings are the only mass murder event that might generate enough public pressure to pass a law that would ban a firearm that can shoot 100 bullets without reloading? Surely it's just as terrible to shoot people who are going to the movies or pumping gas or attending church or having fun at a club or just out for a walk on the city streets.
People are also saying that guns are the only inanimate object that get punished for the crime they are used to commit. But there are many substances that we punish by making their possession or sale illegal and subject to penalty for the humans involved. We don't argue that laws against opioids or cocaine or counterfeit money are unfairly targeting 'inanimate objects.'
As for the argument that any curtailment of gun ownership is an infringement of the Second Amendment and the gun owner's personal rights, we all have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and that right has primacy over the ownership of inanimate objects which can kill other Americans while they are pursuing their own lives, enjoying their freedom, and being happy.
I agree that the gun problem in America isn't the guns. It's the people who value their right to own a weapon capable of mass murder over everyone's right to public safety.
Deb Schultz
Lewes
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