Enough with the platitudes on guns

Enough already with thoughts and prayers and platitudes.  Clearly, they are not enough, or we wouldn’t have 2 students and 2 teachers dead and another 9 injured (and countless others traumatized) in a high school in Winder.

I am not a gun owner, but I accept that a person might own a gun for self-defense.  I understand that a person might own a gun for hunting.  But I cannot wrap my head around why someone outside the military would need to own an assault-style weapon, whose only purpose seems to me to be to fire rapidly to kill as many people as possible.

Some things we don’t have enough of:

·      Common-sense gun laws that prioritize safe practices (training, safe storage, background checks, red flag laws, etc.)

·      Courageous politicians who prioritize their constituents’ lives over gun rights and their own reelections

·      An uncorrupted Supreme Court that does not deliberately or incompetently misread the Second Amendment 

·      Mental health counselors in schools to work with youngsters showing signs of alienation

·      Training for teachers to recognize the danger signs in young people and resources to refer them for appropriate help

·      Metal detectors in every school.

In a nation that has more guns than people, this would be a start toward a more healthy society.

Suzanne Sperling

Athens