Enough is enough: Time to restrict guns

I’m putting my vote with the students from Florida, and across the country: Any politician who takes a dime from the NRA will be wearing a badge of shame and will not get my vote. And that goes for the pharmaceuticals, as well: Any politician who takes money from the pharmaceuticals also wears a badge of shame and also will not get my vote. They go hand in hand. Guns and drugs are killing our children and our people.

We live in a nation of full of faithless, isolated, hypersensitive, self-absorbed narcissists. People don’t have to build character anymore. If you are rejected, disappointed, don’t get your way, you just go out and shoot people with unfettered ease because the “gun laws” are anything but. There is a greater concern for the gun manufacturers’ and gun sellers’ bottom line and the “freedom” to own guns ... lots of them ... than there is for the safety and well-being of our people. No one needs 50 guns! No one needs even one automatic or semi-automatic weapon. You don’t use them to hunt or defend oneself. Their only purpose is to kill a lot of people FAST! In spite of what gun lovers want to profess, the “gun laws” are lax and ineffectual and, in my opinion, too many people who sell guns are more interested in making a profit than they are in keeping these weapons out of the hands of dangerous individuals or we wouldn’t be seeing so many shootings.

Trump, and others, suggesting that we need to improve school safety and focus on mental illness is pure lunacy. How do they expect to do that and how long is that going to take? That goes back to the Sandy Hook (Dec. 14, 2012) pronouncement: “We need to get to these people before they do these things.” How has that worked out so far? How successful was it with the Florida shooter, in spite of the warnings? And, who really can look into someone’s heart and mind and discern their intent? We are fallible individuals. It’s not our place judge others and it’s not the answer to the problem at hand. Or another great idea — we arm our teachers with guns and turn our schools into a full-?edged war zone.

Guns ARE the problem. These “demented individual[s]” as President Obama referred to the shooter of the ?ve Dallas police of?cers, couldn’t do what they do if they didn’t have access to guns. And, though Sen. Rubio fatalistically suggested, “the cat is already out of the bag” ... we don’t have to make it easy for the next “demented individual.” Something can and must be done to curb the slaughter.

Our Founding Fathers could never have envisioned AR-15’s or “boots” (for converting guns into rapid-fire instruments of slaughter ... available on Ebay, Amazon or at any sporting-goods store) in the hands of adolescents. Nor could they have imagined the demise of our society through social media, the erosion of our moral compass or the opioid epidemic. Their focus was on a new republic that had just won its independence from an oppressive government. Our “right” according to the Second Amendment was for a people to be able to defend themselves against an oppressive government, not to put guns in the hands of people to shoot others at will. And, for us to suggest that for 250 years we have had to be in a state of readiness to go to war with our government doesn’t say much for our faith in a system that has worked pretty well for the past two centuries and suggests rather that we are using that as an excuse to have whatever we want whether it is in the best interest of our nation or not. It’s not! (And, I’m pretty sure, if and when we need to defend ourselves from our government ... we’ll find a way.) These guns have no place in our society. And I don’t care if you are a “responsible” gun owner — guns are NOT TOYS. They are dangerous weapons which too often end up in the wrong hands, including those of 2-year-olds! “He who lives by the sword shall die by the sword.” That goes for guns too.

I wonder if the author of “People, not guns are the problem ...” (Daily Inter Lake, Nov. 26) who “made friends with a couple from Great Britain” and taught them how to “safely shoot revolvers and AR-15 ri?es, since they were interested and do not have that opportunity at home...” is aware of WHY they don’t have that opportunity? England had exactly ONE school shooting, the Dunblane “massacre” and changed the law. “... massive public petitions called for a ban on the private ownership of handguns. In response two new ?rearms acts were passed. They effectively made private ownership of handguns illegal (heraldscotlandcom). No handguns and no guns in the hands of the general public. And guess what, they haven’t had a school shooting since! Kind of makes you wonder, what is the learning curve for our legislators or is it just that we are the dumbest, greediest, most immoral nation on the planet?

And, that goes for the pharmaceutical companies as well and the drug ads on prime-time TV. No other civilized country allows such ads on their public television. Why does ours? Because our “representatives” instead of representing the best interests of the people who elected them and whom they are supposed to serve are only interested in their best interests and have been bought off by the drug companies, as well as the NRA. Enough is enough!

Berg is a resident of Bigfork.