For any law that prohibits or inhibits previously accepted or allowed behavior to be effective, it must be logical, proportional, enforceable and actually enforced.

If it meets those criteria, it has a good chance of being accepted by most of the populace. If it fails to meet one or more of those criteria, it will prove to be ineffective.

But the political forces behind the ineffective laws will congratulate themselves and eventually try again without learning the lessons of past failures. The history of gun control laws in the United States pretty much demonstrates that fact.

The only certain way to eliminate these crimes is to totally prohibit private ownership of guns and we know that is unachievable in our country.

If much stricter gun control laws would drastically reduce the tragedy of individual and mass shootings in the United States, I would most certainly support them.

But they will not, because the real problems that result in death resulting from firearms are deeply rooted in our culture.

While were looking for all things like systemic racism, we might want to notice the systemic anger and hatred permeating our fellow men and women.

Pour into this all the recent societal disruption of abortion, national elections, COVID-19, woke, gender versus sexual identity and others, and some measure of chaos is unavoidable.

The following statistics are from different years, but they are close enough for effective comparison. In 2020, gun deaths totaled 45,222; 54% were suicides and 47% were murders. The remaining 3% were the result of law enforcement actions or undetermined.

The real headline getter is now mass shootings. Im not saying they shouldnt be reported, but they shouldnt be goryfied or glorified to the point that another disturbed individual decides he, she, him or her wants their name in lights with a higher body count.

Drugs play their own part in gun deaths.

We seek to convince ourselves that illegal drugs are victimless crimes that should not be prosecuted; besides, those laws are difficult to enforce.

Deaths from drug overdoses are now close to 100,000 per year an estimated 1 million have died from drug overdoses since 1999.

It doesnt seem to matter to us that much of the illegal drug trade involves child labor, coercion of native populations, political and law enforcement corruption that puts Al Capone to shame, turf wars that kill more Blacks than any other races and perhaps as many innocent bystanders as guilty drug runners and dealers.

Meanwhile, from the fentanyl labs in China, to the poppy fields of Afghanistan, and on to the coca plantations of South America, and within our own harmless marijuana fields and farms the producers produce and peddle their mind-altering wares, adding other dangerous substances to get you higher and higher before you spin, crash and burn in an ash heap of another wasted human life!

Is this the freedom you aspire to live?

The grand prize for death will always go to abortion! In the United States alone in 2019, 630,000 children were aborted. They are not something less than human, they are real human beings.

I will never stop writing and speaking about the evils of abortion simply because it is truly evil.

After Satan enticed Eve to take a bite of the apple and she convinced Adam to do the same, radical feminist philosophers have moved way beyond that to convince others that their body matters more than any other on the face of the planet even more than the child growing within her that will leave a part of himself or herself inside her until death.

What is it inside of us that convinces most of us that we are somehow better, more righteous, more worthy, more deserving, more anything than any other person on the planet?

These feelings of superiority lead to discrimination, racism, anger, hatred, envy and other forms of pure evil.

Show me the politicians, political parties or anyone in power who is actually working to change the culture to eliminate these evils.

Seems like the few who are trying to help are drowned out in the cacophony of resistance from all those who profit from evil.

Thats the way I see it.

Echo Journal Columnist / Pete Abler

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As I See It: Guns, drugs and death in America - Pine and Lakes Echo Journal