To the Editor:
The recent mass murder in Florida demonstrates that mentally disturbed, evil, murdering criminal cowards will pick a “Gun Free Zone” to commit their crime. Can we imagine a different outcome if the heroic staff member, who shielded children from bullets with his body, had been allowed to carry a weapon? Outlawing “Gun Free Zones” is the kind of new gun law I would favor.
The Catholic Messenger’s March 1 editorial includes “protecting gun rights” in the headline but goes on to include a statement by the Vatican’s Pontifical Council that “Limiting the purchase of handguns would certainly not infringe on the rights of anyone” Huh!? I do agree with the call for easier access to mental health care for people who are prone to violence.
Background checks depend on reporting criminal activity consistently, which certainly didn’t seem to be happening in Broward County. Limiting “high capacity rifles and magazines” would be against the Second Amendment and would have the effect of eliminating access for law-abiding citizens to many of our most popular self-protection guns. The editorial also calls for opposition to a proposed state constitutional amendment that would subject any restrictions of the right of the people to keep and bear arms to strict scrutiny. I completely disagree with opposition to this amendment!
Also, Deacon Robert Glaser in his March 1 column may think certain mantras are disturbing, but reciting a mantra can be thought-provoking. So here are two I feel are relevant: “A gun is only as dangerous or as useful as the person using it;” and “Gun laws only work for people that obey laws.”
I disagree with the deacon’s assertion that we “idolize the gun.” Americans do idolize freedom and the liberties we have, that no other nations allow, and the Second Amendment right is a shining example of those!
Myles Miller
Sigourney
