Dear Editor,
I just read the Tom Knighton column on “How to Stop Mass Shootings” in your July 27th edition. While Tom makes some good points, the simple answer is “no, we can’t stop mass shootings.” This is America, a constitutional Republic, with 400 million firearms legally in civilian hands. Sadly, few in public office are serious about doing anything about mass shootings, school shootings or neighborhood shootings like those that happen daily in Chicago. There exists in America many who are sympathetic toward illegal alien murderers, terrorists, MS 13 gang members and even school shooters, even one who killed his mother to steal her gun. While those who are so willing to make any excuse for these criminals exist, there will be no progress in the effort to make America safer. Sadly, many elected officials are among those who want to protect people capable of killing innocent citizens. Just look at all the mayors and city council members of sanctuary cities and ask them why the lives of illegal aliens are more important than the lives of American citizens? While you are asking question, ask the voters of sanctuary cities why they continue to return the same elected officials back to public office. The mind sets of these policy makers are the single biggest barrier to make our
communities safer.
Trying to discover a solution for mass killings will be frustrated because those we hold responsible for safety of their citizens will not use the resources available. Let’s take The Capital Gazette newsroom as an example. I don’t know for sure how many people went to work that day, but like Knighton, I doubt if any of them were armed. And, now five are dead. We have no idea how someone with a shotgun was able to gain access to the newsroom. Frankly, I wish that all at work that day were legally armed. Being armed and well trained is one thing. Being willing to defend one’s life is another. We know thanks to Lt. Col, David Grossman (U.S. Army Ret.) in his book, “On Killing”, that only one person in seven can willingly shoot another. There is an enormous body of data to defend this statistic. Even our military must take extraordinary steps in training to help GIs overcome this natural reluctance to avoid killing another person, no matter what the consequences. Mass killers are already sociopaths and kill without any regret.
Hopefully, I have given some pause to those who think that the solution is a matter of banning all guns. The people that society should want to have guns are those who are skilled and who possess that mental strength to use the gun to save victims. Policy makers must then protect those who can stand and fight back [instead of]the social justice warriors who hold positions that enable them to prosecute the heroes of society. One of the Sentinel’s columnists calls these people “sheepdogs.” Just think of how community safety would change if the bad guys knew that 20% or 25% of the law-abiding public were armed 100% of the time. Surely, this would be a deterrent to many. Would this stop mass killings? No, but it would keep these sociopaths looking over their shoulder.
Joe Cascarelli
Rural Westcliffe