Politicians begin rhetoric about restrictions on guns
Another mass shooting in Colorado and the political dance begins. From President Joe Biden to Gov. Jared Polis, the calls for more gun laws ring out. But wait. Background checks prior to purchase? Colorado has it. Magazine-round restrictions? Colorado has it. The Red flag law? Colorado has it.
Colorado should be one of the safest states in the union, but is it? No. Well then, let’s have some more firearm restrictions. Dance. Dance. Let’s dance around the real issue. It’s far easier to blame the trigger rather than the finger. Once the blame is placed at the doorstep of the finger that pulled the trigger, that’s going to take some incredibly hard work and tough decisions to fix.
I’ve read that the real issues behind gun violence are poverty, mental health and addiction. But wait. I grew up poor. My mom scrounged the trash bin behind the butcher shop for a lot of our meals. My brothers and sister aren’t mass murderers. I’ve known a lot of poor people and they don’t end up mass murderers.
Drug addiction. We all know people who are addicted. How many are mass murderers?
So now we come down to mental health, and here is the crux of our problem. Think back to all you know about the mass murderers you’ve read and heard about. Are they sane? Ted Bundy, Timothy McVeigh, Klebold and Harris, James Holmes, Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa.
How do we find them and stop them before the fingers are on the triggers? That’s too hard. Let’s just criminalize the triggers. That’ll be easy.
JJ Johnson, Windsor
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The response from our elected officials regarding the Boulder shooting tragedy lacks substance. Gov. Polis was all smiles when he signed Senate Bill 217 into law last year. The Enhance Law Enforcement Integrity bill was the most restrictive law enforcement measure ever put into law in the United States. Among other things, this bill allows officers to be held liable up to $25,000 just for doing their job. Officer Eric Talley gave his life protecting others. Countless other officers would do the same if the call comes their way.
Yet, the current response by our elected officials to this tragedy has been the same gun ban rhetoric, and the same generic public announcement denouncing the shooter and lowering flags to half staff.
Our elected officials would do better by law enforcement by repealing SB -217. Otherwise, it’s apparent to me the Democratic party would rather dance on the graves of police officers than support them. That support starts with the repeal of 217.
Jeff Jasper, Westminster