Letters: Solutions to gun violence, put the police in charge. We have too many guns.
Put police in charge
A story must begin with a premise. It seems the Columbus Dispatch is promoting two.
Bullets don’t discriminate.
Guns can be violent.
I had to stop reading at the beginning of this article due to what I believe are two false premises. Guns should not be in the hands of criminals who desire violence through pulling a trigger and firing bullets.
Criminals discriminate by choosing violence upon another person. Until we realize that criminals must be taken off the street, and not guns, Columbus will continue to deteriorate into a crime driven city.
As always, change begins with leadership. Change requires actions not policy. Policy initiates the change, but without action, nothing can improve.
More: Columbus gripped by gun violence
More: Columbus Public Health is fighting gun violence one block at a time. Here’s how.
I strongly encourage all policy and change to come from police officers, not elected or appointed officials, to determine actions needed to improve this deterioration of a once great city.
Police officers on the street know exactly what to do. They know the tactics; they know the actions due to their living it every day.
The police must be protected and supported instead of politically trying to make a point to the electorate by determining they are the problem. Criminals who break the law are the problem. This can be done.
This is currently being done in many cities. The findings from the research is conclusive to the policy and actions needed.
Seek help from the source (research & police officers) and quit playing politics by spreading a false premise.
Criminals who break the law are the problem. They discriminate and they fire bullets.
Stephen Stewart, Columbus
Killing with gun should mean life in prison without parole
Recent articles on how to reduce gun violence is the correct step forward.
A step late but at least a step. So much is involved and particulars are difficult to realize. Most everyone has a difference perspective as to how we as a community solve the problem.
Poverty, race, economic standing, education, etc. all are players in how to reduce violent behavior. Obtaining consensus is a wonderful attribute but when humanity becomes involved?
Dispatch reports: UNDER FIRE
The Editorial Board of this paper, appears to be somewhat biased on certain aspects of abating gun control. All aspects of how to assess and control the gun concern needs to be realized.
From my perspective, anyone who kills a human being, and is found guilty should be sentenced to life in prison without parole. (I do not believe in the death penalty.)
I can hope that, maybe, gun violence will be reduced.
Doug MacKechnie, Pataskala
We have too many guns.
Recently, a Texas A&M-Texarkana baseball player was shot during a baseball game while standing in his bullpen. This was attributed to “bad luck” and he “being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Where exactly is the right place these days to not be shot, to be safe from bullets shot from guns.
Add “bullpens” to the list where it is apparently not safe: schools, homes, yards, movie theaters, places of worship, outdoor concerts, work, big cities, suburbs, rural settings.
There is a reason that the leading cause of death for children is now gun shots. There is a reason that The United States leads all “civilized” countries in gun deaths. There is a reason that mass murders rose drastically after the Assault Weapon (and high-capacity magazine) Ban expired.
More: College baseball player shot in chest by stray bullet during game in Texas, police say
The reason is not “mental health,” although that contributes.
There are mental health issues in other countries. Those with mental health issues just can’t reach out and grab a gun. The reason is not “anger,” although that contributes. There are angered individuals in other countries. They just can’t reach out and grab a gun.
The reason for our gun deaths is “easy." We have too many guns.
We have guns in the hands of children. We have guns in the hands of the untrained. We have guns in the hands of criminals. We have guns openly carried in the streets. We have guns in the hands of individuals who do not understand their “rights,” and that those rights are supposed to have responsibilities.
More: Columbus Public Health is fighting gun violence one block at a time. Here’s how.
What do we also have in this country?
Politicians, mostly Republicans, who are so beholden to the gun lobby that they ignore the pediatricians who cry for a solution to children dying, that they ignore the vast majority of Americans who want background checks, who want “Red Flag” Laws, who want a ban on high-capacity weapons and magazines, who want to be safe again, who want to worry about whether their kids and grandkids do well in school, not whether they will return alive from school.
We do have one power still, although these same politicians are trying to limit it: the power of the vote. Use it.
Greg Ward, Dublin
Background checks and better monitoring of mental health needed
Recently, I was driving home soon to travel down 71 South. I could not due to a shooting on the freeway. It took twice as long to get home. Today 70 East is closed starting at Broad Street.
Again, it is due to a freeway shooting.
Columbus is not the only town with this horrendous thing happening. I have a cousin that lives in Pittsburgh and he and another man were in a county meeting with others.
A man came in the meeting the last week of April and pointed a gun at the two of them. Fortunately, they were not hurt. What a terrible way to make the news.
More: Columbus highway reopens after shooting reported near downtown
I have always felt shootings and mental health are the cause. There needs to be a deep dive into who is allowed to buy guns with a background check and better monitoring of mental health.
However, there seems to be a lackadaisical approach to both of these. I have a family member who is 41 years old and still lives at home with his mom because he is unstable mentally.
He struggles with holding down a job and anger management. I’ve often thought he could shoot someone. He’s been in the hospital, but I don’t see anything happening to get him out of the home and into an environment like assisted living. These people “slip through the cracks."
She worries what will happen when she dies, and he has nowhere to go.
This is my experience and I’m sure you will have many more that have the same thoughts.
Barbara Smith, Grove City
Gun violence linked to income inequality
I read with interest about Mayor Andrew Ginther’s embrace of a public health approach to gun violence.
However, I was disappointed to see no mention of an evidenced-based strategy for reducing violence that is so thoroughly backed by research that Cincinnati and Cleveland have all signed on to it: Mayors for a Guaranteed Income.
More: Columbus declared gun violence a public health crisis in 2022. What's changed since then?
Why must Columbus stand alone in its unwillingness to sign on to this nationwide movement to reduce income inequality and in the process reduce all forms of violence?
If the mayor would like a suggestion as to where to fund such a win-win pilot program, my first suggestion would be reducing the police budget since responding to violence with more violence has never worked here or anywhere.
Doing the right thing and joining all the other Ohio mayors who support a guaranteed income is the big missing step in our city’s anti-gun violence strategy, and it’s well past time to take it.
Molly Farrell, Columbus
More: How to submit a letter to the editor for The Columbus Dispatch
Columbus is two cities
Excellent article on gun violence. It showed the incredible damage on our city.
Until 8th grade, I lived in a modest, prefabricated house in Columbus's East Hampton Addition, near Livingston Ave. and James Road. What was a quiet working-class neighborhood with owner-occupied homes became a gunfire zone decades ago. Original owners died off, and residents who could afford to flee to suburbs did as Columbus saw massive white flight.
Much of the Black middle class fled, too.
For the last 25 years, I've lived in Clintonville, where people are out walking dogs and strollers and gun violence is rare. Columbus is two cities: one prosperous and predominantly White, one struggling and mostly Black.
In 1970, former U.S. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan advised President Richard Nixon to follow a policy of "benign neglect" on racial unrest and urban problems. We're now witnessing the social collapse caused by decades of neglect – by government failure to fund decent, affordable housing and high quality urban school systems.
More pointedly, we're witnessing the deadly result of decades of pathological GOP gun policy, including its nominees to the Supreme Court.
The Columbus I grew up in didn't have epidemic gun violence because people didn't have handguns, let alone assault weapons.
The epidemic won't wane until Americans vote Republicans out of power.
David Scott, Columbus
Parents the problem
I believe that over the past several years' experience with this sorrowful, disgraceful chapter in American life, we have become more than just aware of the urgency. The discourse should be more about the solution.
I have written to The Dispatch many times about the solution to gun violence: better parenting. The more that time expires with little being done, and the more that we see that band-aid solutions are being thrashed about, the more I am convinced that better parenting is the only solution.
Letters: Parents, schools should teach children respectful communication
Once again, let's examine: when we see examples of gun violence what is the most common thread?
Almost without exception, there are tell-tale signs and these are signs which, despite outright and soulful denials, are fairly obvious. And who is usually around to see these signs?
At least in the case of youth violence, there are parents or other family members. Let's go back even farther: in these young people's most receptive, learning years there is almost always a family atmosphere of conflict or other disruptive influence which guides the subject to violence.
So, I plead to our community leaders: try a solution which goes to the root cause of gun violence. Make some effort to take, as Robert Frost once said, "the road not taken."
Even though it may hurt individuals and politically, let's bite the bullet and channel our kids and younger family members to a more productive life. Surely, this is a longer-term policy, but as someone else once said, "Nothing good comes easy."
From the editor: It’s time to talk about gun violence
We have talked and spent our way to frustration for decades. Let's truly look and try something which is time proven: better parenting.
Don Denton, Westerville
Blame the media and politicians
It appears that the Dispatch and local politicians have failed to look at all the facts regarding gun violence in our city.
I have not seen anything written or addressed by our local political leaders as to the "root cause" of gun violence. Blaming guns for not being locked up or the other political party for this issue is an insult to our intelligence.
Where has personal accountability for one's actions gone? I have seen and heard local leaders in the community such as pastors speak directly about the root cause. The root cause I speak of is a culture of accepted violence and lack of parenting.
Rarely, if ever does the Dispatch or politicians address these paramount issues. Is gun violence unique to Columbus? No, it's not.
Is there a culture of accepted violence and lack of parenting throughout most of our country's major cities, absolutely yes.
In most major U.S. cities; the education systems are failing or poorly run, the legal systems are broken, there is a general lack of respect for authority and there is significant division between races and wealth.
The media only spurs these divisions by taking sides politically instead of being neutral on visible issues and actually makes things worse for society. Opinions and misinformation are highlighted by mainstream media.
Unbiased reporting and facts are becoming a thing of the past. There are a lot of great community leaders who are doing the impactful front-line work, such as working with at-risk youth and uneducated parents, every day.
These are the people that should be given a greater voice and power on how to address and reduce gun violence in Columbus.
Tim Rioux, Columbus
We need people control
The recent return to a murder rate that is similar to the record number of murders two years ago has everyone concerned. That firearms are the most common weapon used to murder victims is also a concern.
The fact is that we, the people, need to stop blaming the firearm.
The gun has never committed a crime. It takes an outside force (a person) for it to do anything. A firearm gun is just a chunk of metal and plastic that cannot do anything without an outside force (a person) being used on it.
Yes, we can and do need some gun control measures, but we also need people control. We need to find other ways to educate, train and redirect the people who think that a gun will solve all their problems. We need to make available all of our resources to help those who feel that way.
Michael L. Rhett, Columbus
Criminals will always find ways to get guns
Criminals are the ones with guns that are killing, stealing and doing all kinds of crimes. The “good guys “ are the ones with guns that try to protect themselves and their families.
Criminals will always find ways to get guns so when they commit a crime then penalty should be five years or longer depending on severity of crime!
Six months or a year in jail just doesn’t get it. They can handle that but five years or longer gives them real time to learn and reflect on the consequences of committing crimes with a weapon. Everyone that purchases a gun should be screened and have to get a permit.
I have mine from Florida.
Ann Sabatine, Columbus
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Letters: Criminals will always find ways to get guns
