Washington so far failing on solution for shootings

I am neither a Democrat or Republican. I thought about joining one of the parties just as a status symbol, but after watching the chaos in Washington the past year, I’ll just remain a lowly noncommittal.

My concern is the seemingly non-effort of Washington to aggressively come up with even a partial solution to the killing of our school children. After each massacre you would think Washington would attempt to come up with solutions that would curtail these hideous acts, but we haven’t seen them act yet. Do we have to have a certain number of kids killed before Washington will come up with a plan?

Washington talks about mental valuations. After each massacre so far, the mental valuations have been made on the killer after the fact. That’s too late. There needs to be a plan by which the killer is identified before the fact. That way there would be more lives saved. Maybe talk to other countries about this subject. If I am not mistaken United States leads the world in school shootings. That’s sure not a ranking to be proud of.

I would like to make a suggestion which may seem comical to some, but I believe it has merit. First of all, the type of gun used in the Florida school shooting should absolutely not be allowed to be owned by American citizens or whatever citizens who live in the United States. This type of gun should only be used in military war zones, so why can’t we nip it in the bud at this point? My opinion is there’s a probability the person buying these battlefield rifles may have some type of mental problem.

I’d advocate tracing back to where a gun used in a mass shooting was purchased then sending the gun dealer to prison for no less than 10 years, no parole allowed. Each state could be responsible for locating the buyers of the assault rifles and having the owner mentally evaluated. Yes, I know some laws would have to be changed to do this process, but we’re talking about school children’s lives. Some effort is better than no effort. This might be something Republicans and Democrat’s might agree on, since it deals with both mental status (Republicans) and gun status (Democrats).

Please don’t think I am for a no-gun society, I would sure hate to give up my Daisy BB gun that’s been fired about five times. I am calling attention to those guns designed for battlefield use only. CHARLES HUNTER Springdale