Letter: Banning guns isn’t the answer to curbing mass shootings

To the Editor,

The recent spate of gun violence has us all very upset, and quite naturally we want something done about it. It is a fact that, somehow, we’ve gone down the road marked “gun control,” and as more gun violence ensues, we find ourselves further down that road.

Our America has always had gun control, but it began at home, and along with it was taught a most important societal rule called self control.

I’m certain there were as many firearms around when I was growing up as there are today, yet we associated violence with firearms with bank robbers and murderers. Have we so far lost our way that we, the people, depend on a bureaucratic, bloated government to solve our societal problems? Can we not learn good citizenship unless it is taught in school?

I think we have placed the control in the wrong place. The weapon is not the firearm, which is merely a tool, but the weapon is the person using that tool.

We’ve been attacking the tools. Why not walk it back a way and find a way to address the weapons? Lip service is given to this aspect of gun violence, but little action is taken. There will be a way to discover, and help, if possible, those who are becoming a clear danger to others, a way which does not allow infringement on the rights of those who are innocent of dangerous behavior.

I ask that our legislators admit they’ve barked too far up the wrong tree, and to stop sniping and accusing and to do their jobs. Surely control of the tools is tight enough.

Begin addressing the weapon.

Jim Ledbetter Sr.

North Aurora