Too many innocent lives are lost in our country due to illegal use of guns. In some areas, law-abiding citizens don't feel safe walking the streets in their own neighborhood, nor do they feel secure in their own homes. And when it comes to public schools, they feel the safety of their children is in jeopardy.
I live in an area of Salt Lake City where for decades we have been free from any type of vandalism. But in the past few years, I have found two bullet holes in my picture window and a big bullet hole in one of my columns of my front porch. Had the bullet been shot in a slightly different direction, it might have killed some member of my family.A few weeks ago, a man needed to use a public telephone but was denied by a couple of teenagers. After some exchange of words, one of the teenagers went home and came back with a gun. He handed it to his 17-year-old friend, who fired it and killed the would-be user of the public telephone.
On Feb. 14, a West Valley home was riddled with 18 gunshots. It would be too lengthy here to relate instances where innocent children playing in the streets have been killed by stray bullets.
To me, the tragedy is that our elected officials do very little about coming to grips with the real problem. Sure, we have the Brady law, but this piece of legislation will give us very little help. Our elected officials seem to have all kinds of problems satisfying special interest groups who are adamantly opposed to any type of gun control. And yet, there can be no question that one of the responsibilities of our elected officials is to provide a safe environment for their citizens.
I would like to address two questions to our elected officials:
When are you going to stop debating this issue and take effective steps to get guns off our streets? This is what the majority of the citizens of our country want.
If our streets and our schools are such that it is necessary for anybody to carry a gun, what are you going to do to make these places safe for everybody?
If we need to have a referendum to solve this issue, I have no doubt what the outcome will be.
John Langeland
Salt Lake City