LTE: Consider all causes

Editor, Gettysburg Times,

If the response to the recent mass shootings in Buffalo and Texas follows the usual pattern, it will turn into a spitting contest with some people calling for legislation and others claiming that these events are a mental-health issue. Both are right; gun violence has many causes, and we must consider all of them to reduce it.

Josh Martin makes this point in the May 28 “Reporters Notebook,” in which he correctly identifies the need to “examine background check processes.” Currently, 13% of all gun sales in the US are exempt from background checks, and we need to close that loophole. For a more detailed account of this problem as well as several other common-sense measures that I do not have space to mention here, please read Bucks County native Isaac Saul’s essay “We are Broken” (https://www.persuasion.community/p/we-are-broken?s=r). And if you want to see how easy it is to legally purchase military-style weapons without even showing identification, see the documentary, Living for 32, which can be viewed free online.

But we also need to understand that legislation alone is not enough. Gun violence is a mental health issue, and we must move beyond simply saying that to doing something about it. This should include investing money in schools to work with the increasing numbers of troubled young people. We also need to find ways to identify those who may become shooters before they do so.

I own a firearm myself and support the Second Amendment. But I understand that it, like all our other rights, has common-sense exceptions—it would be absurd, for example, to believe that the right “to keep and bear arms,” which it guarantees, applies to nuclear weapons. Overwhelming majorities of Americans want common sense measures to prevent gun violence—more than 80% favor laws to close our background check loopholes and to prevent individuals with a mental illness from buying guns. I hope their voices prevail this time.

Kerr Thompson,
Gettysburg