Editor,
The shooting in Parkland instantly brought cries for “common sense gun control” and the students are ready to eviscerate the 2nd Amendment in response. Mainstream media is carefully avoiding telling us that this shooter, like virtually all school shooters, was on medication, probably SSRIs [selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor]. Surely this fact is as relevant as the type of gun the shooter used.
Meanwhile according to Teen Safety.com 11 teens a day are killed by distracted driving, mostly texting. Where is the outrage? No marches, no call for the removal of cell phones or changes to the Constitution. Like the drug connection… silence.
We seem to be rather selective about what teen deaths are acceptable and which deserve outrage. Are these teens less dead because they weren’t shot? My nephew died because of a careless cab driver and the pain is just as great as if he had been murdered with a gun.
Teen deaths are abhorrent but they won’t be stopped with misplaced feel good laws. Ask yourself what will really stop such things from happening.
A ban on assault rifles? Been tried and did not reduce deaths noticeably. There are between five and ten million such guns in existence in the US. How are you going to collect those? Door to door SWAT teams? Semi automatic guns were invented over 100 years ago and were not a problem until SSRIs became common.
Better background checks? If you don’t believe those in existence are adequate you haven’t tried to buy a gun recently. Sometimes takes two weeks to get approved. Remember that’s the FBI looking at your history as well as the ATF.
Ban on all guns? Why not? That worked out so well for Prohibition and the war against drug users. The Mafia and MS13 could make huge fortunes selling illegally imported full automatic weapons to our criminal class while law-abiding citizens were disarmed.
Harden our schools? Works most of the time for our federal buildings so it wouldn’t hurt to try it. Arm our teachers? Wouldn’t hurt to try.
There seems to be no easy answer.
Mike Sutton