Discussions needed to curb violence
Published 12:20 am Friday, January 2, 2015
How many more senseless deaths must occur before we can civilly talk about curbing gun violence in our community without causing “sides” to form and familiar diatribes to commence?
Earlier this week, for the second time in just a few weeks, a young person in Natchez has lost his life after being shot. It’s a horrible tragedy.
Why don’t we, as a community, simply begin a dialogue aimed at tackling the problem of teen and young adult crime and violence?
How can we prevent another local teen from losing his life through gun violence? Such an effort starts with breaking down exactly what happened.
The victim apparently had in his possession at the time of his death a pistol. It’s a baffling phenomenon. How do children — and that’s what a 16-year-old is — gain possession of semi-automatic pistols?
This isn’t a reason to lobby for more gun control laws. The teen’s possession of a weapon violates existing gun laws already on the books.
For the young man to have such a weapon in his possession means one of two things happened — either he stole it or someone illegally gave or sold him the gun. While it’s too late to prosecute the victim if the weapon was stolen, however, if the latter is true, a much more sinister crime occurred — arming a child. If true, that needs to be investigated and prosecuted as well.
While we do not wish to lessen or deny constitutionally guaranteed rights to bear arms, with those rights, however, come responsibilities, chief among them being gun safety.
Clearly, what we are doing now isn’t making America any safer. Perhaps in the wake of the teen’s death Natchez can have a substantive discussion that leads to solutions for the very real violence plaguing our community? One would think we would have had enough bloodshed by now.