Gun control necessary in providing public safety

Monday morning, Ian Robbins shot his two children and ex-wife to death before shooting himself in a Tucson trailer park. Tuesday, I read a column by Jackie Casey extolling the virtues and necessity of gun ownership ("Gun control: A Nazi legacy"). Of course, she cloaked her fear-driven rhetoric in the Second Amendment and the need to protect ourselves from our own government, which is undoubtedly about to invade us.

Do NRA nuts like Ms. Casey not read the newspapers and hear the statistics on the amount of gun-caused deaths in this country? In 1993, 39,595 people were killed by firearms. That statistic is from a 1994 report by the National Center for Health Statistics. Ms. Casey is supposedly studying statistics; why didn't she give a source for the "thousands of government and media sources" who will tell me that the Second Amendment is "obsolete?" Thankfully, the United States Supreme Court and most reasonable people disagree with her.

I fear some aggressive nut with a gun much more than I do my government. Does Ms. Casey honestly believe "the government" will for some reason want to invade us, when it consists of individuals with families and ties to the community like everybody else? I feel sorry for such paranoid and fearful people, and I distrust people who feel the need to be armed to the teeth much more than I fear some invasion by the government. That does not make me a "fascist," a term Ms. Casey may want to study the meaning of a little more thoroughly before applying it to gun control advocates.

The Founders would doubtfully attach the meaning to the Second Amendment NRA wackos do if they saw the widespread bloodshed guns now cause in this country. My hope is that America will wake up and ban guns altogether. Then none of us will have to fear getting shot by some disgruntled sicko with a gun in his hand and a chip on his shoulder.

By J. Todd McKay (letter)
Arizona Daily Wildcat
May 2, 1997