More can be done than just mental health

Regarding: “Local legislators hope to find property tax relief” (Reporter, Feb. 21), one sentence stuck out.

“Sullivan, Fain and Hargrove have suggested that lawmakers focus more on comprehensive mental health bills than gun regulations.”

First, I’ve been in the mental health system. I’ve served in the military. I’ve worked for city government, and as such with law enforcement and others.

I have one simple question, “What would you not do to save the life of your child?” Not the unreasonable, the outlandish, but the possible. Where would you draw the line?

When it comes to senseless, preventable gun violence, safety, control, whatever you choose to call it, we seem to have a national myopia that tells us we can look at almost anything except the guns used, because, darn it, the Second Amendment.

I’m not a gun control fanatic. Neither am I a gun owner. But there’s more that can be done than just mental health. Mental health alone won’t resolve the problems associated with gun violence.

Maybe there were a lot of gun owners at that meeting. Those who firmly believe in their right to own a gun for the sake of hunting, of home protection.

Right now, people are dying. Children are dying. Senselessly. Needlessly, Violently. And we keep fighting ourselves into a corner of inadequate action.

So, again, I ask, what is it you would not be willing to do to save the life of your child?

That’s what the discussion feels like.

Me? I would do anything reasonable, feasible. I would rule nothing out if it had a real chance at saving the life of my child, my wife, or yours.

There’s got to be a way to meet in the middle, where sensible legislation can be enacted to do something more than just treat every/anything else but the weapons used.

And there ought to be a way to address that in a way that also protects and preserves the rights of gun owners.

This really shouldn’t be an either/or.

If it were my child, it wouldn’t be.

Ok, let’s try “mental health,” and when that’s not enough, let’s try something else, “but,” and when that’s not enough, let’s try something else.

Sooner or later, we’ll run out of “buts.”

And when that day comes, let’s have the conversation we could’ve started with. One that includes doing something about the weapons of choice.

Always a “shooter,” Always a “gun.”

– Mike Moore