Letters on gun control, guns on campuses

Pass sensible gun legislation

One thing I can’t stand is the helpless/hopeless attitude of those who are willing to accept senseless gun violence rather than support positive solutions to the problem.

The idea that every year 33,000 people are killed and more than 100,000 people are injured or disabled by guns and gun violence shouldn’t be less important than our right to minimally regulated gun ownership. Many of those who feel that way also complain about tax revenue being spent on social programs, but they ignore the fact that gun violence costs taxpayers billions each year in medical and legal expenses.

It’s time to get our priorities in order and pass commonsense legislation that will help reduce the amount of gun violence.

Can’t control

Street drugs have been illegal for generations. Almost every city has a police force as its basic foot soldier in the war on drugs. The counties provide the next level of control effort with their sheriff’s departments. The states have their own police forces, and most have special drug enforcement departments. The federal government has the massive Drug Enforcement Administration, which gets additional support from other agencies.

In spite of this army intent on keeping illegal drugs out of our society, we do not have control. Kids as young as middle schoolers can obtain marijuana and other drugs if they want them badly enough. Our jails are crowded with drug traffickers. The violent gangs in many cities use drug trafficking as their lifeblood. Some states have given up the struggle and have legalized certain drugs and loaded them with taxes. Illegal drugs still persist in those states.

Government action is not working that well for drug control. How can any logical mind think that gun control can be achieved?

Passing laws doesn’t equate to control. For example, when a pervert hovers his drone over your swimming pool next summer, you can bet it won’t be registered. You can also bet that Iran will have a nuclear bomb.

No guns on campus

I am a student at the University of Kansas, and though I do believe that there should be armed and trained security personnel to protect innocent students, staff and visitors, I absolutely do not believe that having armed students will result in a safer environment. In fact, I see a big problem with not being able to tell the difference between someone wanting to shoot up the school and someone trying to stop the attack.

Sen. Michael O’Donnell, R-Wichita, stated that “responsible gun owners make the public safer” (“Kansas regents preparing to open universities to guns,” Oct. 6 Eagle). He is assuming that all students who carry firearms are of the legal age of 21, are of a sound state of mind, are trained to use guns safely, and have no previous criminal or mental health record that would disqualify them from possessing such weapons.

I see absolutely nothing good coming from this.

This story was originally published October 28, 2015 at 7:04 PM with the headline "Letters on gun control, guns on campuses."