Lawmakers need to see gun control is best option

The tragic shooting in Florida brought the subject of somehow ending senseless shootings back to the forefront. There are three potential solutions to this.

One is gun control by regulating and controlling who can buy a gun and registering that ownership. The second is controlling the people that might commit such an act. The third is becoming an armed camp by starting with teachers, arming them to deter any potential threat in that school.

This last option is least feasible as there are thousands of schools, elementary, middle, high school and colleges where shooting have and could take place at anytime in the future. It is not the duty of a teacher to become law enforcement; they have enough to do controlling the students, and will do heroic acts should it become necessary. Additionally, when the next shooting occurs in some other location with many people, do you arm the staff at those facilities? Theaters, churches, shopping malls, the list could go on.

The second option proposed by the NRA under the auspices of “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” That is true, it takes a person to point and shoot at someone. Those that have committed this heinous act have come from all walks of life of varying backgrounds and some with no prescient signs to those with obvious aberrant behavior. How do we control the mind of an individual? Who knows what anyone is thinking at any given moment? Obviously there can be guidelines to prevent some from owning a weapon, but how do you stop anyone in particular from going rogue?

Lastly, the current cry to action is for gun control. Unlike a person that can hide thoughts and intentions, a gun is an inanimate object that can be tracked and controlled. You can control guns, you can’t control people. I hope that the lawmakers stop reveling in the Second Amendment and find a way to enforce that article, yet control ownership and access to weapons. At a minimum there should be restrictions on assault weapons. I don’t know of any hunter that takes his AR-15 into the woods and dumps 15 rounds rapid fire into a deer.

I understand the satisfaction of target shooting to imagine one is dusting off the bad guys in some foreign conflict, but that can be regulated as well. Gun control is my choice and I hope that our lawmakers see the infeasibility of the other options and do the right thing.

Toby Scott, Whitefish