To the Editor:
FBI statistics saying we have 9 guns for every ten people and one gun death every 16 minutes is not
alarming. We should know guns don’t kill people. It is the guy that does it. So the same FBI statistic
stating that last year thousands of gun sales slipped through the federal background check system,
186,000 – 512 guns a day from 48,000 gun retailers has to be very alarming, that a gun does not get into
the hands of a weirdo or criminal. That responsibility rests on about 500 people at the FBI Criminal
Justice Center. If the check is not completed in three business days the gun can be purchased legally.
Often the system is over loaded that it speeds up to nearly two a second to check. Boy! We can’t wait to
have it! OK we just love guns. We like to give toy guns for our kids to honor Christ, the messenger of
peace for Christmas! Our unique way of telling our kids that guns are a synonym for peace. So much for
celebrating the birth of our Savior who forgave those who crucified Him by saying that they knew not
what they were doing. The cops have now the tough problem to distinguish the toy from the real stuff
when youngsters growing up like this as in Columbine can use the real stuff to mow down folks.
Americans are buying twice as many more guns now than when the system was introduced in 1998. How insane
is it that we cannot have a reliable system of background checks so that a gun cannot be obtained by a
wrong person? Every one of us is part of a gun death that results from its use by a weirdo or criminal.
As a compulsory obligation for exercising the Second Amendment right lawful gun owners particularly have
the obligation to do everything in their means to help law enforcement in preventing a gun reaching a
wrong hand. The civilized thing to do is to extend the time for a background check and expand the
machinery for doing it. Society has to live freely among really responsible law abiding gun owners. No
one can question the right to own guns. But it comes with the highest of responsibilities as it directly
deals with the preservation of life itself.
V. N. Krishnan
Bowling Green