Northeast News
September 16, 2015

Dear editor Joe Jarosz,

I am writing in response to the Newshound’s rant decrying Yael Abouhalkah’s rant on Twitter about gun owner’s destroying America [titled ‘The News-dog stands with WDBJ,” posted September 1, 2015]. The “what part of the Constitution do you not understand” in particular bothered me as it seems to completely ignore the words “well regulated militia” that are included in the second amendment. I find this omission and the “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” matra used by gun rights advocates to be just a bit too misleading to accept.

While I am not a Constitutional scholar, I read “well regulated” to mean government not only has the constitutional right, but the constitutional responsibility to regulate who and what kind of weapons citizens may have. I admit I find that thought somewhat chilling in today’s atmosphere. Trying to round up all the guns on the street is neither practical nor would it make us safer overall. It is the mental state and criminal history of the person that many say is a determining factor in who should not be allowed to have a gun. They are the people who kill people, right?

It is time for us to take a step back from the rhetoric of both sides in this screaming match and look at the facts and figures that can give us a picture of how guns are being used in America. One fact is that households with guns are many times more likely to experience a suicide or accidental death by guns than those who do not. Another is that until very recently, murders by gun have been on a decades long decline and police killings by civilian shooters are at a 40-year-low. The police themselves are not immune to these statistics as they commit suicide at a much higher rate than they are killed by citizens.

We have been convinced by the news and entertainment media and politicians to believe we are a nation of crazed killers. That isn’t true and we have to start being smart on the issues of gun control, drugs and crime or we will continue to see respect for authority plummet and continue to make others rich off of our gullibility and paranoia.

Jeffery C. Humfeld,

Kansas City resident