These shootings are senseless and painful. There can’t be any reason for them. I pray for the victims and their families.

However, I support the right of people to keep and bear arms. Is my position disrespectful to the suffering families, or hypocritical? No. Because I know several dozen people in Tennessee, and certainly other states, who have concealed carry permits, who can apply ordnance to targets with such accuracy that this horrid person would have likely been dead before this type of carnage could occur. I’ve seen people (mostly former military) double tap 0.45 ACP with head shots on targets at 25 to 50 meters. I’ve also seen snipers make shots in the kill zone at 1,000 meters. If it was somebody I know in that theater, I wish one of the former Marines or Army soldiers would have been there.

I don’t want a bunch of wannabes out there carrying guns like in the wild west. But the fact of the matter is that the prevalence of guns, particularly assault and battle rifles, is likely at an all-time high. And nothing is ever going to reverse this, and nobody has control over who owns these guns or where they are located. I would suspect that 95-plus percent are legally owned. I suppose the ATF can review their data, particularly with regard to ammunition purchases, and try to prevent some future catastrophic events like this. They have the information.

The bottom line is the pundits and politicians are having a field day with this issue to promote gun control, when it is law enforcement, and citizens with ability who could have prevented it from being so catastrophic.

 

Walter Boyd

Andalusia