Looks like another Chronicle writer or columnist has fallen victim to the 24-hour cable news cycle school shooting hysteria, where it appears that these mass shootings happen every day and right next door to you.
While I agree with most of what Brian Mittge wrote in his Saturday commentary and I am by no means downplaying the recent Florida tragedy, I just take issue with people who have a space (newspaper or television) and a wide audience to push even more hysteria to ban the evil AR-15 rifle.
Like clockwork, Mittge states that he is a "moderate gun owner,” which means he doesn't own an AR-15 and neither should you. He continued with: "We need to look at the fast firing guns and high capacity magazines that are common to most of these shootings," which is factually not true.
Since 1927, there have been 41 school shootings in the U.S. The deadliest was in 1927 with 41 deaths. The killer used bombs and a Winchester Model 54 rifle. The second deadliest was the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007 with 32 deaths. The killer used a Glock 19 pistol. Out of these 41 school shootings, only eight involved had an AR or SKS type rifle, the rest were pistols, hunting rifles, shotguns, etc.
To further debunk this CNN/MSNBC-driven AR-15 hysteria, the FBI’s 2016 murder statistics also point out that deaths by AR-type rifles are statistically low. In 2016, nationwide, 7,105 people were killed by a pistol.1,604 were killed by knives and sharp objects. 656 were killed by fists and feet, etc.. 472 were killed by blunt objects such as bats and clubs. 374 were killed by rifles (to include the evil AR-15).
The point I'm making is, statistically, your child is more likely to die walking or riding their bikes to school rather than being killed by a "fast firing gun with a high capacity magazine."
Evil is evil. And evil will find a way to kill even if you ban an object that kills 100 people a year in a nation of 330 million.
Step away from the CNN/MSNBC/ABC/CBS/NBC AR-15 rifle hysteria and let's talk about all the layers of government bureaucracy failures that allowed a young man with very serious, well known, mental issues to buy an AR-15 rifle. The warning signs about this kid were all over the place with failures by the school system, the local sheriff’s department and even the FBI to intervene.
Theodore Even
Chehalis
