Home > News > Boston Globe > Opinion > Letters

The role of guns in tragedies

March 29, 2005

IN ALL THE coverage of the school shooting tragedy at Red Lake High School in Minnesota, the finger was pointed everywhere in search of the ''why." Poverty, racism, bullying, mental illness, reservation life, the teenage shooter's personal loss, black trenchcoats, and the Internet have been cited as reasons. Was there something wrong with the individual who did this? Did people around him miss signs? Obviously these were all part of the scenario leading up to the tragedy.

One reasonable factor emerged in the March 25 editorial (''Deadly Aims"): the easy availability of guns in this country. Regardless of all the other issues, it was a gun that played the most immediate role in this troubled teen's ability to carry out his mission. Why do we so often dismiss the role of the gun in these types of tragedies? Guns are by far the weapon of choice in America, killing almost 30,000 people a year. And yet Congress and many of our state legislatures refuse to address this widespread public health problem, preferring to allow the nation's gun lobby to bully them into carrying out its distorted mission.

LINDA SMITH
Mass. Million Mom March
Brookline

PRINTER FRIENDLY

E-MAIL TO A FRIEND