LETTER: Gun control, yes, but laws alone won't stop carnage

Editor, Register-Mail: I have been a political conservative for decades, but I concur with gun control advocates who call for more restrictive vetting of gun purchasers. No teenager should be able to purchase guns, especially military style weapons, nor should those with mental or criminal backgrounds be able to buy guns. However, we can pass all of the gun laws imaginable, vet them until doomsday, even take guns away from law-abiding citizens, and yet criminals and nutcases will still get back alley weapons to create mayhem in our schools and on our streets.

Look at the restrictive gun laws in Chicago and New York City and their outrageously high murder rates. How are those gun laws working? Biden is a political hack who exploits situations for political advantage. He has not expressed outrage about the 218+ Chicagoans murdered on the streets this year.

What we need are more well trained law-abiding individuals with guns who can defend themselves and confront the bad guys. More citizens with legal concealed carry permits may give more of the bad guys food for thought. Politicians need to stop politicizing gun problems and advance reasonable anti-gun legislation that does not undermine completely the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment, as with any of our "rights," is not absolute. We can do better than using mass tragedies as political cudgels to advance the liberal agenda that circumvents the right to bear arms.

I want my guns, which I was vetted for, and have a military background as to how to use them. As we consider all of the innocents being slaughtered by the mentally deranged and the criminals, consider all the millions of innocents being slaughtered in the womb by "choice." Where is the liberal outrage for them? Let's stop making partisan political excuses and start making an impact on this idiocy and the carnage of innocents. — Thomas Mosher, Victoria

This article originally appeared on Galesburg Register-Mail: LETTER: Gun control, yes, but laws alone won't stop carnage