Background checks and waiting periods needed

To The Eagle:

Last week a fellow provided a long list of statistics showing why gun violence was actually rare and mattered very little, at least to him.

Here’s a statistic for you from the New England Journal of Medicine. Researchers found that having a gun in the home was linked with nearly three times higher odds that someone would be killed at home by a family member or intimate acquaintance.

I think much deeper background checks and much longer waiting periods would be helpful in keeping firearms out of the hands of a person who wants to harm themselves or others. The crazy ones never seem satisfied with just self destruction. They often destroy other lives on the way out of their own.

The social and personal causes of gun violence need to be addressed long before a background is checked and a gun is bought. “Mitigating the slaughter” will require evidence based solutions to the root causes of violent behavior.

If you’re clinging to your guns in anticipation of a “government takeover,” you’re a little late. That ship has already sailed. I prefer a well regulated society to badly regulated “guns rights” and the murder and mayhem they make possible.

Grace Ling

Puget Island