Recently in our newspaper, there have been numerous articles and letters about guns in America. In an ideal world there will be no guns, no police and no bad people. But unfortunately that is not the real world.
A good place to start is through education. We then learn that it is not about killing others; it is about protecting our loved ones. Gun education cannot hurt anybody. It has the opposite effect. People that are afraid of guns would benefit from a gun safety class. No good citizen ever wants to have to use that gun; it is more like a metaphorical fence. If you take guns away from terrorists and bad people, they will use knives, bombs, vehicles, poison or whatever they can to hurt you and your loved ones. If you take guns away from the good people, they become easy targets. The criminals will always be able to get whatever they want.
The police will not be able to help in a sudden situation unless they happen to be around. So kudos goes out to the Charlemont gun store and reserve police officers offering free gun safety education classes to teachers and to our newspaper for publishing that story. There is no such thing as “safe rural America.” Some of our cities have some of the strictest gun control laws in this country. We do not need any more gun control laws. We just need to enforce the laws that are already in place. According to the National Institute of Justice, chances of being attacked in New York are one in eight; Los Angeles, one in seven; Atlanta, one in five; and Detroit, one in four. One out of every 12 women and one out of every 20 men will be stalked sometime in their life. As a country, Switzerland has very little, if any, gun violence. Check out their gun control laws. Again, the key is education.
So close your eyes and pray, let your sheep out to pasture without a fence and wait for the wolves to move in.
Patty Bordner
Northfield