To the Editor:

It has been a long time sense I have written to an Editor, but the opinion in a recent issue issue regarding gun control needs to be addressed.

The writer used some very good examples to support his argument; however, every solution he offered has been tried in the past without satisfactory results. In 1997 England, Canada, Australia and New Zealand implemented almost everything suggested, and the violent crime rate in the United Kingdom has soared by 77 percent since 2007. Their violent crime rate went to 2,034 per 100,000 compared to the USA violent crime rate of 466 per 100,000. These facts can be verified at gunsinamerica.com.

If examining and licensing gun owners and registering guns would work, then wouldn’t vehicle drivers stop violating traffic laws? Every driver and every vehicle is registered, but people still run red lights and drive over the speed limit. How can this be? All have been properly registered, tested and educated, but for some reason laws are violated. Why would anyone think the same procedures would stop mis-use of guns? 

If these proposed law changes would fix the problem, then Chicago would be one of the safest cities in the nation because almost every proposal made is in place in Illinois and/or Chicago. In Illinois to buy a gun or ammunition, you must have a state-issued gun owners identification card that has your picture on it and identifies you as a responsible honest law-abiding person and to acquire these cards you must go through an extensive background check. In Illinois they call it a “good guy card.” In Chicago you have to have a police-issued permit to have a gun and the gun must be registered with the police. This also requires a background check. 

In Chicago a few weeks ago there were 40 people shot and nine killed in one weekend. Nothing was said about this in the mass news media. The amazing thing is that criminals do not obey laws. Imagine that! How do these gang-bangers in Chicago even get ammunition? I guarantee they do not have “good guy cards.” Many of them are too young to even legally buy guns. If gun laws do not work and have been proven almost daily not to work, then why do people continue to suggest we make more of the same laws? To do the same thing over and over and expect different results every time is the definition of insanity.

The so-called gun violence is not a gun problem. We have a people problem. A people problem that most people do not want to fix. The reason is that it will require us to change. We will have to make changes in the way we raise our children, educate our children and the way we treat one another. To make these changes it will probably take at least a generation to completely fix. We must bring the Supreme Being back into our homes, lives and schools. We must return to the Golden Rule and treat others as we would want to be treated. 

There was a survey recently made on several college campuses and the results that came out of this survey was that a significant number of the students thought that it was OK to use violence to shut up people that were expressing views that they did not agree with. Look at the number of cases in the past few years where conservative speakers were not allowed to speak on college and university campuses that they were invited to speak at, where the students rioted and destroyed public and private property because they did not want anyone to hear the speakers. 

I believe that it is time that we really take a long hard look at what has happened to society during the last few decades. When I was in school, many years ago, I made a stock for my shotgun in art class. Now the children cannot even carry a nail clipper to school. The change was us. We have become the problem. We are the only ones that can fix the problem and it will not — or should not — require any lawmakers to get involved. Stopping violence, whether by guns, verbal, physical or riots, is something we must do. We are the ones that are responsible and we are the ones that must change.

Donald Kimmel

Waynesville