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In 1776, every man and boy in America, along with a good number of women, owned a gun and knew how to use it. Anybody could buy a weapon without restrictions or background checks.

In the 1950s, boys took their hunting rifles to school to show their classmates. And no one ever worried back then that someone would target them in a random shooting. It was unheard of.

Today we have fewer gun owners, percentage-wise, than when our country was founded, and more murders. So you will have to look elsewhere than to the existence of guns if you want to place blame for that horrific crime in that Charleston church. If that vicious killer couldn’t get a gun, he would’ve built a bomb.

Nor can you blame the existence of the Confederate flag. No, I’m not in favor of that flag; it’s a symbol of rebellion, which too many American scandalously glorify. But if our Supreme Court in its infinite wisdom declared it acceptable to desecrate the real American flag, how can we justify restricting the use of any other? But now we have toy sellers removing Civil War board games for depicting a Confederate flag, revisionist history at its worst.

But this is the PC era, when truth is sacrificed to feelings, morality is defined by the media, and mobs of angry teens are allowed to commit any crime and, in fact, are justified and excused for it. What’s needed is a new CS era, read “Common Sense,” instead of this mob rule.

I pity those poor folks in Charleston, South Carolina, and the nightmare they’ve had to endure, and find myself wishing they’d gone armed to prayer meeting that night. There are some churches in America where, if a gunman walked in, he would never walk out.

Linda Campanella

Yatesville