LETTER: Laws should protect, not hurt, citizens

Talk about it

To the Editor:

There is a significant upswing in the talk about “assault weapons” in the wake of Connecticut. We must remember that laws are to punish criminals. Criminals are such because they break the law. Laws against murder haven’t stopped it, nor have those against arson, robbery, rape, assault, etc. Yet these crimes against people are the definition of what good laws should be: punishing those who hurt others.

Knowing that these laws haven’t stopped any of their respective crimes, yet knowing that the police are inundated with other laws they must enforce, traffic laws, drug laws, etc., why do we take their time away from IMPORTANT laws, those concerning actual assaults, thefts and murders, and divert that attention towards inanimate objects? Millions of people own them and kill no one, ever, yet the number of owners is an authoritarian guideline as to WHY they need to be banned in the first place.

Personal responsibility demands I not equate the presence of legal guns in schools with 100 percent prevention of these kinds of atrocities, but for Pete’s sake, the laws already on the books surely haven’t stopped them, either.

The Sandy Hook incident alone arguably involved the breakage of 41 laws: one murder, three counts theft, three counts illegal transportation of weapons, three federal counts firearms on school property, breaking and entering, reckless discharge of a firearm, numerous attempted murder and actual murder counts.

We’re not issuing teachers weapons, it’s about allowing those who already care enough to carry one legally, to simply cross the invisible wall from everywhere else to school zones and not be a criminal.

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