Every choice we make has a benefit and a cost, and every day we decide if the benefits outweigh the costs or not in connection with our choices. This is also the case with our culture’s decision to allow cheap and easy access to guns and ammunition of all sorts. However, as we have seen in one heartbreaking episode after another, there is a terrible price to pay for that decision. The mass murders at the elementary school in Connecticut are only the latest result of that choice. The 26 Newtown murders — 20 of them children — join a long line of other indescribably horrible mass murders that have taken place at Aurora, Colo., Virginia Tech, the shopping mall in Oregon (a week ago), Columbine High School and the Nuwood factory in Goshen.
One might say that, as sad as these terrible events are, they are simply the “price of freedom” and that all the innocents slain are “collateral damage” that has to be accepted so we can continue to enjoy all the guns we want. Arguments like these are a sign of an irrational addiction. It is past time to declare that the societal cost of cheap and easily accessible guns is more than any sane people can bear and is no longer acceptable.
Here are a few ideas about how to curb this insanity and make better choices:
1. Alcohol and tobacco are recognized as clear threats to health. They are taxed to discourage their consumption; guns and ammunition are also clear threats to health and should also be taxed at a very high rate to discourage ownership of more than a very few guns and bullets per person. That would be completely adequate for personal self-protection and it would gradually reduce the ocean of guns now available. And if bullets cost $100 each, fewer of them would be fired by anybody.
2. Semi-automatic weapons and multiple bullet ammunition clips must be outlawed. This would reduce the horrifying ease with which mass murders are committed. Neither hunting nor self defense requires such weapons. When the 2nd amendment to the Constitution was written guns were muzzle loaded, which required time to reload after each shot so mass murder wasn’t possible by a single individual. The guns protected by the 2nd amendment were only distant cousins of the killing machines we have now. There was a ban on these items until it expired in 2004 — it needs to be renewed and strengthened.
3. Purchasing guns at gun shows needs to come under the same laws for background checks that apply elsewhere.
When a person has an addiction we often put up with it until they start to harm themselves or others. The time to confront our addiction to cheap and easily accessible guns is now. The costs of that addiction are completely intolerable.
— Skip Barnett of Goshen is an associate professor and international student adviser at Goshen College.
Letters to the Editor
READER POINT OF VIEW: America’s gun addiction has costs
- Letters to the Editor
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Remember the amnesty law of ’86?
The “Gang of Eight” U.S. Senate members have drafted an immigration bill that’s worse then the amnesty bill signed into law by Ronald Reagan in 1986. S. 744 gives those here illegally instant Registered Provisional Immigrant status, which means they are free from being deported if they register for amnesty.
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Don’t ignore signs of someone contemplating suicide
Everyone has issues that they have to deal with in their lives. It’s when we become overwhelmed and our issues become so drastic that they are unbearable that the results can be catastrophic. Suicide is a desperate attempt to escape suffering that has become unbearable.
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Why do immigrants come to the U.S. illegally?
With the current increased interest in fixing our broken immigration system both political parties are putting forth legislation.
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Safety along C.R. 35 is a concern
This letter is meant to bring awareness and hopefully corrections in regard to C.R. 35 in Elkhart County. Something needs to be done immediately to enforce the laws pertaining to the use of C.R. 35.
- Emphasis on gun control makes you wonder
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Goshen should stick with ‘Redskins’
I must respond to the letter to the editor from Mr. Ron Chupp (The Goshen News, May 9). What’s in a name, Mr. Chupp? I too have a Native American heritage, and for some reason, I am not offended by the term Redskins, or brown skins or any other color of skins.
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More important issues than a nickname
I would like to, in the most respectful way possible, respond to Mr. Chupp’s letter (The Goshen News, May 9) regarding the ongoing debate over the term “Redskins” being used as the nickname and mascot for the Goshen school system.
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There is hope through God
May I share what happened to me after praying about the issue of whether to have guns carried by school authorities at Goshen High School. While calling out to God, my question was: Why have we as a nation come to trusting in government agencies, such as Homeland Security, rather than obeying the Constitution in what you have declared through our forefathers?
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Sheriff has this reader's support
This letter is in defense of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and in response to Shari Mellin’s letter (The Goshen News, May 8) about Sheriff Brad Rogers not obeying the laws related to anti-gun legislation
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‘Redskins’ nickname is offensive
The question posed (in the May 5 edition) was, “What’s in a Name?” In the case of the GHS (Redskins) mascot, it is insult, degradation, racism, and an ongoing slap-in-the face reminder of the disgusting manner in which my Native American ancestors were treated by Europeans.
- More Letters to the Editor Headlines
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Remember the amnesty law of ’86?
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