Letter: Reason, discussion needed to solve gun issue

To the editor:

The letter of June 27 regarding the Orlando shooting (“Tragedy in Orlando not about guns”) demands a response. The writer would have us believe that President (Barack) Obama and Secretary Hillary Clinton want to take all our guns away, and that people are evil, not guns.

He points to tragic historical events of mass murder which could rightly be considered terrorism, if that term had existed at the time. However, even a cursory inspection of the data will reveal there are far more people killed and injured today by guns than were ever killed by dynamite or arson. He’s right, the government has not outlawed dynamite or gasoline; nor should it.

Neither Clinton nor Obama have ever said they want to outlaw guns. They do believe that there are evil people in the world with easy access to guns who can, therefore, carry out evil deeds. They and 90 percent of other Americans believe that we can reduce gun violence by implementing sensible laws around background checks and basic safety training for those with carry permits. That’s all.

I find it very distasteful when reasoned debate about a serious national issue devolves into partisanship and name calling. We will never be able to address this problem until we can talk about it constructively and have a civil dialogue based on facts.

Tom Blake

Greenwood