Curing symptoms instead of attacking the disease
To the editor:
Every time I think I have heard it all, the good old American extremists come out of the woodwork to prove me wrong. Let me set this scene for you. A mother and father pull their car into a parking lot right off the highway in Dolan Springs, Ariz. They accompany their 9-year-old daughter into the “Last Stop” public firing range. A licensed shooting instructor who is also a member of the Arizona National Guard places a fully automatic weapon into the child’s hands as approving parents look on.
The young girl proceeds to shoot off the top of the instructors’ head, an accident.
Now, at this point, I could offer you a long list of questions about what happened that tragic day. One question that would not be on that list is the one the entire country now seems set on debating. “How old should an innocent child be before they are allowed to fire an automatic weapon?” That’s right. That question wouldn’t make my top 20 and debating it does as much good as offering that shooting instructor a Band-Aid.
I have many questions, some regarding the sanity of the parents and some related to their parenting skills. I have questions about what the benefits are for having 9-year-old kids trained in firing such weapons. And there are questions for the instructor and how he obtained his instructors license? And did he truly believe his other job, as a member of the National Guard, would get easier with more and ever younger citizens becoming proficient in the use of machine guns? And what about the owners of the firing range? What possible advantage was there to let that child shoot that weapon even if everything went without incident?
No, here is the only question we all should be asking. The only question that sends shivers up the spines of NRA members everywhere. Oh, they can handle questions about poorly trained weapons instructors or unregulated firing ranges or parents with no common sense. What they do not want to debate is; “Why are there fully automatic weapons available for anyone to walk in off of the street and begin firing?” You solve that question and you resolve all the others.
The journey this country has taken from the right to keep and bear arms to the right to let 9-year-old strangers shoot your machine gun has been a long downhill one. The uphill climb along the road back, should we ever find the will to take it, will be even longer. But as with most difficult problems we Americans are faced with, we will not act until it is too late, only do a fraction of what’s needed and spend our time and efforts trying to cure symptoms instead of attacking the disease that cause them.
And closer to home, events like the recent burglary of the local gun store that put numerous high-powered and semi-automatic firearms on the streets of Lee and Collier counties are the kind of things keeping the silent majority awake at night. It amazes me that the initial response by local officials was not to eliminate the sale of such totally unnecessary weapons in our community, but instead, to suggest that the gun shop might want to install better burglar alarms. Curing symptoms, too little, too lat,e and the disease continue to spread.
I just hope the sound that finally breaks our collective silence is not a BANG!
T. Brown
Matlacha