{"id":18842,"date":"2012-12-27T17:28:22","date_gmt":"2012-12-27T22:28:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=18842"},"modified":"2012-12-27T17:28:22","modified_gmt":"2012-12-27T22:28:22","slug":"gun-control-yes-or-no-is-the-question","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=18842","title":{"rendered":"Gun Control: ‘Yes Or No’ Is The Question?"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY IRIS B. HOLTON<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sentinel City Editor<\/strong><\/p>\n

On December 14th<\/sup>, 20 year old Adam Lanza <\/strong>first shot and killed his mother. Then he went to Sandy Hook Elementary School, where his mother taught school.<\/p>\n

Lanza <\/strong>shot his way into the school and in the aftermath of his rage 20 children, ages 6 and 7, and 6 teachers lay dead. He also ended his own life.<\/p>\n

President Barack Obama<\/strong> cried during a press conference after learning about the shooting. He also vowed to investigate gun control.<\/p>\n

The horror of the shooting has revived the call for gun control in this country. Some readers shared their opinions about gun control.<\/p>\n

Dr. Samuel Wright<\/strong> said, \u201cThere are far too many senseless killings. I support every initiative of our president!\u201d<\/p>\n

Howard Harris<\/strong> said, \u201cI lived most of my 78 years in segregated neighborhoods including Roxbury in Boston, Tampa\u2019s College Hills Housing Project and New York City\u2019s Harlem.\u00a0 Statistically these areas were high crime areas.<\/p>\n

\u201cYet, I knew personally only one individual who was wounded with a gun. He was shot breaking into a business when I was in high school.\u00a0 I personally do not know anyone killed with a gun and knew only one individual who was murdered by another means.<\/p>\n

\u201cBased on street crime statistics, we African Americans should be quaking in our boots. Yet, only 21% of us own guns. On the other hand, Whites have a far lesser chance of being the victim of street crime or home invasion.\u00a0 However, 47% of them put their families at risk by owning guns.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe news media reports many more cases of murder-suicide and other family-neighbor related shootings than it does of shootings of home invaders.<\/p>\n

\u201cThank goodness, the tragedy of Newtown is causing sane discussions about guns such as limiting bullet magazine capacity, etc.\u00a0 History tells us that sooner or later, Americans will get it right. America abolished slavery, gave Constitutional rights to Blacks, labor, women, and recently to gays, and landed men on the moon.\u00a0 Someday, somehow, Americans will stop the carnage caused by the interpretation of the 2nd Amendment of the Constitution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Attorney Roderick Ford<\/strong> said, \u201cThe gun control problem lies in a conflict between (1) the First Amendment of the U. S. Constitution, which guarantees the right to bear arms, and\u00a0\u00a0(2) the fundamental objective of government, which is to protect\u00a0the life, liberty and property of citizens. And so,\u00a0I think that a\u00a0balance has to be struck in favor of reasonable limitations on the purchasing of guns, particularly, military-assault-like weapons. \u00a0In addition, we have got to find ways to teach civic virtue, ethics,\u00a0and character, without emphasizing religious dogma, in our private and public school systems.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to bring together the best Constitutional lawyers,\u00a0Theologians and political theorists in order to figure out how best to construct a\u00a0secular society that is deeply-rooted in a “universal morality” that respects life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maurice Kemp<\/strong> said, \u201cDespite guns being the weapon of choice and the leading cause of homicides (the FBI reported 67 percent of homicide were caused by guns in 2010), I do not favor gun control as a principle means to control the growing violence in our American society. In other words, the growing violence in our American community is not the results of the number of additional guns being manufactured, distributed and sold.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe growing violence is the results of the growing disregard for human life and well-being or simply stated, criminal-mindedness. \u00a0And, this disregard is the result of the law of large numbers and too many highly impressionable people being exposed to violent homes, violent\u00a0neighborhoods and just as importantly, violent popular mass media – television, cinema, radio, etc.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn essence, guns do not kill people, people do. As for criminal-minded people, they do not tend to follow new laws, even those designed to control guns, any more than old laws, those that currently make possession of a firearm as a felon illegal.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the people that generally follow the law, intent on committing a violent act in the heat of the moment, they will switch to the next most convenient means of harming the next in the absence of having a gun. \u00a0Bottom line is, human life is precious and we need to promote its value far more often than we do presently.\u201d<\/p>\n

Danny Green<\/strong> said, \u201cYes, I support gun control. I just think there is no reason for people to be able to own high-powered guns and rifles.\u00a0 That type of weaponry should be reserved for military personnel only.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever,\u00a0I do support homeowners owning a handgun and hunting rifles.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms. Pat Spencer<\/strong> said, \u201cWith the way the world is going, we need gun control.\u00a0 It is true that \u2018guns do not kill people, people kill people.\u2019\u00a0 However, without the guns, or the bullets, people will have to think more than they do now before killing.\u00a0 Having protection is not bad, but the murders that are committed are mostly not for protection, but the action of sick minds.<\/p>\n

\u201cGun control will not erase all killing, but I am sure the number of killings will be lessened.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY IRIS B. HOLTON Sentinel City Editor On December 14th, 20 year old Adam Lanza first shot and killed his mother. Then he went to Sandy Hook Elementary School, where his mother taught school. Lanza shot his way into the school and in the aftermath of his rage 20 children, ages 6 and 7, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":210,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/210"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18842\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}