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Thursday, March 28, 2024
The Observer

Let's advertise the facts

I have found your "shooting down" of certain arguments (Jan. 23, "Shooting down bad arguments") to be lacking in critical information that would highly influence the conclusions drawn from your article.
Your first refutation is of the argument, "Fewer mass shootings would occur if more people were armed." You say Columbine had armed guards. This is not entirely correct: There was one sheriff's deputy at the school who was armed, and there were two shooters. And you know what? That deputy actually saved lives. He engaged in a shootout with one of the gunmen, Eric Harris, and bought precious time for backup to arrive, in which Harris was not shooting anyone. Yes, an armed guard actually saved lives. You also mention Fort Hood is a military base. It's precisely because it was a military base that this shooting was allowed to happen: According to military policy, personal firearms are not allowed on the base in order to limit violence. In the first example, lives were saved because there was an armed guard, whereas in the second there were no guns present because it was a gun-free zone. Also, let it be known all but one of the mass shootings since 1950 has taken place in a gun-free zone.
Your next argument involves the state of mental health care. In Europe, only 21.1 percent of those with a 12-month mental health disorder received no treatment. In America, that percentage increases. Less than one-third of adults in America actually receive treatment. Perhaps the problem with mentally ill patients and gun usage arises from the lack of access to care and the stigma that surrounds mental health here in America?
While I do not claim to know what needs to be done about gun control, as the decision needs to be up to those wiser than myself, I do wish to advertise all the facts. It seems to me your article fails to mention a lot of things that should be taken into account when discussing the issue of gun control.

Davis Sandefur
junior