Country needs serious repairs all around
Guns (and knives, baseball bats, motor vehicles and drugs) don't kill people – people kill people!
Will castigating the NRA and those legally in possession of firearms remedy these types of violent acts?
Will changing the purpose and intent of our Constitution help?
Will armed security personnel in the schools prevent future Newton, Tucson or Columbine attacks? They don't do much to deter bank robbers.
Will allowing teachers and school staff to carry concealed weapons reduce the carnage? That will make that person the shooter's first target. Can parents be assured that any teacher will have the where-with-all and presence of mind to draw down on a shooter?
Will banning assault rifles and/or other types of automatic weapons reduce future incidents? Probably not. Anyone determined to commit such an act will resort to something else – like a pipe bomb.
Will any one of these proposals singly or in combinations mitigate or solve this problem? No! It's high time that our legislators recognize that the problem area lies in the care and treatment of those with mental health issues. And the first retort to that statement will be “where will we get the money to do that?”
I suggest that a five-year moratorium be enacted whereby all monetary aid given to all foreign countries now be reduced to 50 percent of current levels. Then that freed-up money be used to provide better, more comprehensive, individual health care and screening for those with current or possible mental health needs.
Furthermore, I suggest that we make the monetary part our foreign aid program pay-as-you-go when that moratorium expires. In other words, if taxpayers want part of their tax dollars used for foreign aid, they could designate up to 50 percent of their tax bill for that purpose and claim it as a deduction for that year, just like it's done with some school tuition programs like CTSO. And make it so that no more foreign aid be given out than what's taken via this act. Charity begins at home. Our free-spending government officials need to be reined in before they spend us and our country into the economic gutter with other third world countries. Then maybe our taxes will decrease and we'll have something to show for our money!
Taking proper care of, treating and possibly institutionalizing those with mental health issues instead of giving them a handful of pills and shoving them back on the street, hoping to hell they'll take the damn things, would go a long way to reducing the random acts of violence.
If anyone with more money and horsepower wants to plagiarize those ideas, then be my guest!
Our country needs to make some serious repairs to itself, its infrastructure and its image and in doing so, return it to what everyone who wore a uniform strove to preserve and protect.
ERNST W. WULLENWEBER JR.
Yuma
