Letter to the Editor

Laws Need to Target the Right People

To be expected, the cry for new gun laws wails in the wake of the Nevada shooting. This shooter didn’t fit any profile and didn’t send up any red flags of what he was about to do. As much as anyone would like to pass laws to prevent such mass shootings, someone determined to kill will always find their way around any law to accomplish an evil intent. As a licensed pilot, this man (who was on a suicide mission of destruction) could have made a kamikaze style dive into the 20,000 concert goers killing far more than he did.

 Even well-meaning legislators can’t dream up enough laws to thwart every possible angle an imaginative killer might pursue! “We need to do something” gun control advocates will insist. There are many draconian solutions to saves lives. DWI deaths and domestic violence would end if alcoholic beverages were banned. Summary executions of drug dealers might stem opioid deaths. Rape and sex crimes would stop if every male child born was neutered! Is this the kind of society we want?

 It doesn’t take a machine gun to kill 59 people in one instance. Very ordinary duck and squirrel guns can wreak as much or more havoc in determined hands at the right setting. As horrific as mass killings are, when the smoke clears, there is a clear demonstration of good people far outweighing the evil ones. Laws need to be made that cater to that majority of good and not chain those masses due to a minority of evil!

 Karl Schmidt

Farmville, Va.