DEAR EDITOR:
Maksim Gelman killed four people and wounded five others with an 8-inch Wusthof Chef''s knife in New York City. Did Mayor Bloomberg or Gov. Cuomo legislate extreme knife laws?
George Weller killed 10 people and injured 63 with a Buick LeSabre in Santa Monica, CA. Did Sen. Feinstein or Sen. Boxer write legislation to stop the sale of Buicks and various other full-sized vehicles?
Hani Saleh Hasan Hanjour killed 174 people with a passenger jet in Washington DC. Did our politicians demand background checks on every passenger buying a plane ticket?
Timothy McVeigh killed 168 people with fertilizer. Where was the outcry to limit the amount of fertilizer a person could purchase?
Julio Gonzalez killed 87 people with two matches and a can of gas in the Bronx. Was there a political push to have the registration of match and gasoline purchases?
Jack Gilbert Graham killed 44 people with dynamite near Longmont, Col. Did anyone say that the general public should not be allowed to have dynamite because it is similar to explosives used in the military?
So why, when Jared Lee Loughner killed six people and wounded 13 others with a handgun, was there a demonizing of firearms and an outpouring for more gun control laws?
Each individual had issues. Gelman was a drug user, drug dealer and had a criminal record; Hanjour was a terrorist; Weller was deemed too old to be driving; McVeigh came from a broken family and was bullied in school; Gonzalez was distraught over losing his job and his girlfriend breaking up with him; Graham's suspected motive was the flight insurance on his mother who was on the plane; Loughner was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic.
Guns, knives, vehicles, planes, fertilizer, matches, gasoline and dynamite are inanimate objects. They cannot hurt anyone. They can't use drugs, come from a broken family, be distraught, have a motive or be schizophrenic. It's the human factor that determines if an object is used for good or evil.
Anyone who treats a gun differently from any other inanimate object under the guise of curbing violence or public safety is only doing so to push his or her own political or personal agenda.
Bill Waugaman
New Wilmington, Pa.