To the Editor:

Having listened to a lot of talk and reading my share of published articles, I feel it necessary to express my observations. As we have progressed from the times of Barbarism to a more civil people, we have found it necessary to have rules by which we live. The founders of this country well recognized it.

Not like Nancy Pelosi, who feels we should hurry up and pass it so we can find out what is in it. They had long discussions from any and all before they decided on what rules were needed, how they would be worded and applied.

The Constitution stated that some of our rights had already been granted by our Creator and was very specific about the power of the government, which is granted by its people. Knowing the occasion would arise when this document need changes, a means was provided through amendments.

Any one group did this with great caution to lessen too much power. Our founders knew law-abiding citizens would only adhere to these rules. How I know this is because they also formed a judicial system to deal with those who were elected and disregarded the rules.

Think now, we have all laws or rules to control people and then they only give us a means to punish them. No words written on a piece of paper protects us. No object has the ability to do harm on its own.

Whiskey, illegal drugs and guns, to name a few, will not cause any harm on their own. Yes that’s what I said; it’s the misuse of these things that causes harm. I know some people believe that if we make them unavailable then we will no longer have problems with them. Wrong!

Because we tried it with alcohol, and those wanting it still got it from bootleggers of which one of our prominent families has ancestral ties. We have all these laws, which make it illegal to manufacture, import, sell or use certain drugs. Question. How many of our children under 18 die ever year from drugs, and do you really think we have stopped it? No, we have not.

Now we come to guns, which have been regulated and banned in some areas. Because of the tragic misuse of this object, we are now rushing to throw another law at the problem as one senator said while the “iron is hot.” This will not stop this type of incident. It will control law-abiding citizens.

So before we rush to get that new law on the books and start patting ourselves on the back feeling we have fixed the problem, let us look for other avenues to protect less we make illegal gun runners rich as we did the bootleggers when prohibition was in effect.

Remember laws do not protect, people do.

Is another law passed the answer?

Reginald Bradshaw
Franklin