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First Posted: 5/9/2013

Gun checks distract from the real problem

Universal background checks would not have prevented the killings at Sandy Hook, Aurora, Tucson or Columbine or probably any other mass killings, because either the killers used stolen guns or had already passed background checks.

The politicians and pundits occasionally admit this truth. Yet we are still locked in a battle to pass universal background checks and there is nothing being done to protect our children and citizenry. It is as if people are looking at this shiny object (universal background checks) while the real issues of protecting our children and others from distrubed people goes without notice. The proposed laws would have had no effect on preventing any of these terrible killings or future ones.

The Bath school attacks were perpetrated by Andrew Kehoe on May 18, 1927 in Bath Township, Mich., resulting in 38 elementary school children and six adults being killed and at least 58 other people injured. No gun was used. He did it with fire bombs and explosives. It is the deadliest mass murder in a school in United States history. The Cologne school massacre was a mass murder that occurred at the Catholic elementary school located in Germany on June 11, 1964. The perpetrator, Walter Seifert, attacked the people at the school with a home-made flamethrower and a lance, killing eight students and two teachers, and wounding 22 others.

Again no gun but the results were the same. The Oklahoma City bombing by Timothy McVeigh on April 19, 1995 claimed 168 lives, including 19 children younger than the age of 6 and injured more than 680 people. No gun was used. He used a rented van, fertilize and fuel oil. There are many more like these. The common thread in all mass killings is a terribly insane person bent on getting the desired 15 minutes of fame. There are many ways to inflict mayhem on innocent people. Look at the recent events in Boston.

When insane jihad terrorists attacked the World Trade Center gaining access to the cockpits using box cutters and killing thousands of Americans we did not ban box cutters. We greatly enhanced access security at the gate using armed guards, hardened the cockpits, hired more armed air marshals and allowed trained flight deck personnel to carry guns. We enhanced identification and hunt the type of crazies that would harm us.

Why are we not doing this for our school children? The elite schools attended by the children of our elite politicians and political pundits have this type of security. Why are we not working on identifying the real crazies to stop this mayhem before it can happen. In every mass killing it was abundantly clear far ahead that the persons committing these heinous crime were insane.

I keep hearing the words common sense being thrown around by our elite politicians and pundits. I see no common sense in what is transpiring in Washington and fear for our children and citizenry.

Charles Mangan

Kingston

TL article gives reader nestful of info about birds

We all — most of us — love birds. We see their nests in Luzerne County’s bounty of trees. But I never wondered how those homes had been created. Thanks to Times Leader Outdoors Writer Tom Venesky’s beautiful description, I now know of the intricate construction birds create to make their cozy nests. Wonderful!

Betsy Bell Condron

Kingston