Banning guns is an unrealistic idea

By Rick Ainsworth, Henderson

Wednesday, June 18, 2014 | 2:02 a.m.

I’ve read several letters recently by people who want the NRA abolished and all guns confiscated in the wake of the killings by a pair of lunatics.

Why is it that when some moron plows his automobile into a crowd of innocent spectators, we talk about the nut behind the wheel. Why is it that when another nutjob builds a homemade bomb and detonates it in a crowd of people, we talk about the nut who built the bomb. But when an idiot takes a gun and shoots innocent people, it’s all about the gun?

Because of last weekend, Joseph Wilcox will always be remembered as a hero, someone who wanted to try to help, like Americans do. He lost his life doing that, and after the female idiot shot him, the two Millers did not harm anyone else. Could it be that Wilcox prevented more deaths by confronting and slowing down these two until law enforcement could get here? Something to think about.

As far as banning the NRA and all privately owned guns, that proposition is as ignorant and unrealistic as it can possibly be. Do we really believe that banning all handguns from private ownership would stop the killings in North La Vegas, or Los Angeles or Chicago? No, it would not. It never has. These problems are societal in nature, and no magic pill can solve them. If the NRA is disbanded and all citizens have to relinquish their guns, the killings in those cities will continue, indeed they will escalate.

The police had several contacts with the Millers, and deemed them to be no threat. Perhaps we should start talking about how to recognize and deal with these threats before they explode into violence. The Sandy Hook killer had a long history of mental illness, as did the Santa Barbara killer and the Boston Marathon bombers. Perhaps we should pay more than scant attention to people who behave like crazies. My grandmother used to say an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Let’s concentrate on prevention. The cure is too painful.