Letter to the Editor

The facts about gun violence

Thu, 01/14/2016 - 11:00am

Dear Editor:

Although the gun manufacturers’ lobby has successfully cowed Congress into suppressing any research on gun violence by the Centers for Disease Control, there exists plenty of credible research done privately and by other countries.

What we know from this research is that the proliferation of guns leads to more violence. The suicide rate increases. People who keep a gun by their bedside are more likely to shoot their wife or some other family member. Children who live in homes with guns are more likely to be killed with that gun. Vigilantes and militias become bolder and more disruptive and prone to resort to using guns.

On balance, the liberal gun policies espoused by the gun lobby and their cult-like adherents present a greater danger to our lives and our ability to self govern that they purport to protect.

We have seen in these pages that any suggestion that we should find a reasonable balance between freedom and the law is met with name calling and overblown hyperbole. What is telling is that the the gun manufacturers’ lobby is trying to keep Americans in the dark about the cost of irresponsible permissive gun distribution system. But the cost of this policy is over 30,000 innocent lives each year with no justifiable reason for it.

We need to have a civil, well-informed discussion about how to reduce gun violence in this country. Please write or call our senators and representatives to tell them to lift the research ban on gun violence.

Fred W. Nehring

Boothbay