To the Editor:

I have wracked my brain figuring out what I could do to prevent another Newtown, but when I considered the First and Second amendments, I concluded the solution is complex and will cost gazillions and take 20 years to implement.

But, I believe we can all do something. Here are a few simple answers:

• Ban all guns

• Lock up every child with a personality disorder for 40 years, then do a lobotomy and sterilization before releasing them.

• Make every person have a national ID card that would reflect their mental stability to prevent them from buying a gun.

The unfortunate thing is society will not accept the solutions, but there are things we can all do now and it will not cost a dime.

In the short run, my recommendation is simple. See something, hear something, tell someone and do something.

How many times have you seen something that just did not seem right and we were too shy, lazy, afraid, or unconcerned to do something. If we want to prevent another Newtown, the day of failure to act must end.

The long-run solution is much more complex and costlier. We will revisit another Newtown unless we start with educating life’s gatekeepers (parents, family teachers, physicians and therapists, judges, video makers, gun manufacturers, leaders and bosses), in recognizing what might be a personality disorder, a threat to society, or any form of recognizable mental illness. This is just the beginning.

If we are successful in our education programs, society must remove the stigma of mental illness and make affordable help available. We will still need to develop an infrastructure to support the therapy (voluntary or not). However, notwithstanding the above alternative, it is doomed to failure if we fail to act.

For those that know prayer and faith can solve many problems, we may want to consider that James 3:26 says, “faith is dead without good works.”

So, let us commit that for the rest of our lives to do something, or tell someone when we see, hear or know something is not right.

D.B. Gray
Windsor