Gun Control
Recently, a letter writer (Carriage Towne News, January 10) commented on our country’s renewed focus on gun control. Of course, our newly awakened concerns about guns are a direct result of the atrocity at Sandy Hook Elementary School. But the letter writer says, “We do not have a gun problem in America, we have a morality problem.”
It just seems strange to me that, only in America, have morals slipped so low. Maybe our country is exceptional after all. But I think the writer has confused morality with mortality. It is our gun mortality rate that is off the charts. I cannot believe that we are any more sinful than the Brits or the French, but citizens of those nations do take a dim view of their neighbors owning assault rifles. We should too.
But I read that guns are selling like crazy. Assault rifles, like that used at Sandy Hook, are flying off the shelves of gun stores. I guess we just don’t trust our elected officials (even though we do elect them). And we don’t trust our neighbors (they might be drug addicts or socialists). And we don’t trust our public servants (they might try to take away our guns). Maybe we don’t trust anybody! We have become a fearful, angry people. It may be necessary to edit our national motto slightly. New, more accurate motto: “In guns we trust.”
Of course, I am not serious about changing our motto. Most Americans are good people who trust one another. And most Americans probably still trust in God. Maybe then---trusting in God, rather than guns---they will remember this warning: “Leave off from wrath, and let go displeasure: fret not thyself, else shalt thou be moved to do evil.” (Psalm 37:8)
Gene Baldwin
Atkinson
