The President, our politicians, the Times Union and your readers are all calling for more gun control as if this is the ultimate solution for preventing another Newtown, Conn., massacre.
Assuming that we could succeed in banning all handguns and assault weapons, the next weapon of choice might be knives.
On the very same day as the Newtown massacre, a man stabbed 23 children in a rural Chinese elementary school. Richard Speck stabbed and strangled eight student nurses in Chicago in 1966.
According to the FBI, there were 1,694 knife homicides last year. How would we ever be able to ban knives?
Cars and trucks are sometimes the choice as a mass murder weapon. Timothy McVeigh used a truck bomb to kill 168 people in the Oklahoma bombing in 1995.
We were unsuccessful in banning alcohol in the 1920s and are unable to stop the illegal drug trade. We will never be able to wipe out illegal guns.
There is a common thread that seems to characterize these mass killers. They are loners and mentally ill. Would we have fewer mass killings in the United States if we made sure individuals with severe mental illness were receiving proper treatment?
I believe that most psychologists and mental health specialist would say yes. This is the area that needs our focus, not more gun control.
RAYMOND GAUS
Schenectady