America’s gun carnage continues unabated — hundreds of tragic injuries and deaths, year after year, mounting to thousands as the decades pass. Meanwhile, some key members of U.S. Congress sit on their hands, concerned that acting against the multi-billion-dollar gun industry, with its fleet-footed cadre of lobbyists, would torpedo their careers.
The last gun control law in our country with teeth — the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act — was championed by President Biden, then a senator from Delaware. The law, which expired in 2004, banned certain types of assault weapons. During the decade it was in effect, the law helped reduce the number of mass shootings in America.
Granted, a lot more needs to be done than stopping the sale of assault weapons to civilians. We need more comprehensive background checks across the country in stores and private gun shows. These background checks should be tied into a national database that red-flags individuals with criminal records. The database should include those who have demonstrated or are suspected of having a propensity for violence.
Other needed measures include a gun-licensing system comparable to that in Canada, as well as increased funding for more comprehensive mental health counseling and treatment programs in all 50 states.
Aren’t we completely fed up with the endless platitudes after each and every horrific mass shooting; the predictable, laconic responses to the endless massacres such as “thoughts and prayers” to the victims’ devastated families and friends?
If members of Congress possess any kind of moral compass, and I’m beginning to wonder if many of them do, they would actually sacrifice their political careers to wage a war on gun violence in America. With the status quo, they will have to live with the endless slaughter as it ravages our country, knowing they could have done something.
I really don’t know how those in positions of power who are opposed to meaningful gun control in America can sleep at night.
— Frank Baker, Eagle River
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