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To the editor:
Twenty years ago, Al Franken offered a look at the GOP and Fox in a book entitled “Lies and the Lying Liars who tell them.” The book had no impact. Take the gun debate; regardless of the ages, numbers or locations of the carnage, GOP legislators tell the same old tired lies, echoed by Fox.
They did this after 20 first-graders were slaughtered in Newtown, Connecticut, when over 500 concert-goers were shot and 58 died in Las Vegas. GOP lawmakers are now repeating lies in the wake of six dead at Covenant Christian School (their core base) in Tennessee. The lies go this way: 1) gun restrictions only serve to take weapons away from law-abiding citizens. A lie — nearly every mass shooter was a “law-abiding citizen” until they weren’t.
The same is true for Americans who take their own lives; 54 percent of gun deaths and 79 percent of gun homicides are suicides.
And 2) shooters target “soft” locations and the answer is more guns, like arming teachers. A lie — gun deaths are directly proportional to gun ownership. States with the loosest laws and highest ownership have the highest gun violence rates. Additionally, “hardening” sites by adding guns will have zero effect as nearly every mass shooter goes to their target intent on dying; many kill themselves when their bloodlust subsides.
3) Citizens need guns to protect themselves and their families. A dirty lie — multiple studies have found that gun injuries and deaths are three to five times higher in gun owner households.
4) Mental illness is the problem, not guns. The last and most insidious lie – every country has mental illness, but, none have our level of gun deaths. America is unique in the world and the singular difference is the level of gun ownership. The true mental illness problem in the U.S. is our obsession with guns.
I don’t want to hear about abortion, CRT, political correctness or the Second Amendment. Guns kill over 45,000 Americans every year and if you choose to be represented by a Republican, you are part of the problem.
Joseph Cannisi
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