July 14, 2023

Letters to the Editor

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No letters were printed this week; here is the letter from three weeks ago:

Reader: The best way to solve the gun problem is to heal our culture

It appears from Daniel Conway’s editorial (“Gun Rights and Responsibilities”) in the June 2 issue of The Criterion that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops advocates only government solutions to what are actually spiritual problems.

“If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns” is true. Banning most guns will penalize only people who won’t misuse them. A criminal is someone who disobeys laws, old or new. If he wants a gun, he will steal it or buy one from a “friend.”

The current background check system is poorly managed now, and adding to it will not make it better. Those who lie on application gun forms are rarely prosecuted; people who are adjudicated unfit (mentally ill) to own a gun are not all reported to the system; “school-to-prison” policies have prevented the reporting of violent students. The shooter at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., is an example.

Guns don’t fire themselves and are not the root problem. Fatherlessness is the chief predictor of young men turning to violence. We will never solve the “gun problem” until we heal our culture spiritually and promote stable, married families.

Until then, unfortunately, it will take jails to protect the innocent from the violent.

-Gwendolyn O’Connor | Indianapolis

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