Regarding: “Local legislators hope to find property tax relief” (Reporter, Feb. 21), one sentence stuck out.<\/p>\n
“Sullivan, Fain and Hargrove have suggested that lawmakers focus more on comprehensive mental health bills than gun regulations.”<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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?<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Right now, people are dying. Children are dying. Senselessly. Needlessly, Violently. And we keep fighting ourselves into a corner of inadequate action.<\/p>\n
So, again, I ask, what is it you would not be willing to do to save the life of your child?<\/p>\n
That’s what the discussion feels like.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
And there ought to be a way to address that in a way that also protects and preserves the rights of gun owners.<\/p>\n
This really shouldn’t be an either\/or.<\/p>\n
If it were my child, it wouldn’t be.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Sooner or later, we’ll run out of “buts.”<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Always a “shooter,” Always a “gun.”<\/p>\n
– Mike Moore<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Regarding: “Local legislators hope to find property tax relief” (Reporter, Feb. 21), one sentence stuck out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-33530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-letters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33530"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33530\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33530"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=33530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}