Editor, The Times:
When Hurricane Harvey hit Houston and the flood waters rose, one would have though that would be a “wake-up” call?
Something that would be taken as final proof of global warming and its looming dangers? Newspaper columnist Gwynne Dyer pricked that gasbag in one big hurry.
He pointed out that it would potentially take the loss of Miami or some other important U.S. seaboard city for the good citizens of the USA to even start thinking in the line of climate change.
Fast forward—a lone gunman who had bought a whole slug of automatic fast firing weapons from his local gun store.
This is the good old “guns don’t kill, people kill” land of the free and the brave. So armed as he was from a hotel window in Las Vegas, he sprayed a crowd at a concert killing close to 60 concert goers, including four Canadians.
This, one could think, would be a moment of truth. Maybe there are too many guns. Maybe military rifles should not be used for hunting squirrels.
This killing of many people by one probably lone gunman would wake the American citizenry up. A new “Jerusalem” of responsible gun ownership would sweep the land.
However, columnist Lawrence Martin drove a sharp spike into that one in the Globe and Mail. He pointed out that already there were calls for more weaponry such as 50 cal machine guns and rocket launchers, for a guided missile would have taken that lone gunman out in a jiffy.
I like playing the rule of the holier than thou Canadian, saying thank you to the cash machines and coke dispensers.
However, all I have to do is think of the days of Humble Harper who catering to mainly a bunch of Alberta “rednecks” cancelled out Canada’s national gun registry.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not against gun ownership. I still own a shotgun and a .22 rifle. They are registered—oh, I mean were registered.
As I told a friend, while I’ve not shot anything in years I can still appreciate the beauty of a nice hunting rifle.
But an assault rifle designed to waste human beings as rapidly as possible? Spare me!
So what would wake Americans to the fact that being “armed to the teeth” can be detrimental to one’s health and happiness. That is a good question.
Dennis Peacock,
Clearwater
