Gun control has been debated for decades in America. However, the senseless slaughter of Americans by handguns and assault weapons must be stopped. Therefore, a new method must be used to convince Americans and the members of Congress of the urgent need to pass a strong federal gun control law. A daily running scoreboard should be set in New York City in New York City’s Times Square listing daily the number of gun deaths caused by handguns and assault weapons in the United States. The deaths should be divided by accidental deaths, suicides, self-defense, and murders. The deaths must also divided by the weapons used by gunman —HANDGUNS and ASSAULT WEAPONS. By e-mail, law enforcement people in every American village, town, and city could provide the information needed to a group in New York City, and they could put the data on the scoreboard. (The gunman used an assault weapon(MILITARY TYPE RIFLE) to kill the children in Connecticut.

 The states and cities with strong gun control laws would gladly send in the information. The cities and states with weak control laws would probably hesitate to send in the required information. Nevertheless, the police don't want insane persons, like the gunmen in Arizona, Virginia Tech, and Connecticut, walking the streets with loaded handguns and assault weapons, and they would send in the data.

The statistics listed on the running scoreboard should be listed daily on all the TV news channels, major and minor newspapers. Furthermore, the statistics would provide clear evidence that handguns and assault weapons have caused senseless deaths and rarely used for protection in a home or a business. The data would also result in the pro-gun lobbyists losing influence in Congress. Therefore, Congress would pass a strong gun control law with strict regulations for all fifty states. Moreover, a federal gun law with no loopholes would keep people from purchasing handguns and assault weapons in states and cities with weak gun control laws and selling them to black marketeers in states with strong gun control laws.

"Gunsmoke" was a popular TV western in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. The TV drama was historically accurate of a Kansas cow town in the 1870s. In Dodge City the men were not allowed to carry guns to churches, barn dances, weddings, civil and criminal trials. In an episode Marshal Dillon said, "When a honest man gets killed for showing a little courage, it makes you wish that nobody should be allowed to carry guns. Maybe someday no one will." (Episode Thoroughbred. October 18, 1958)

It would take an organization or a philanthropist to finance the anti-gun proposal. MADD is a powerful national organization and with its influence states have passed strong drunk driving laws. A constitutional amendment forbidding deficit spending almost passed when its supporters listed deficit spending daily by the federal government on a running scoreboard (George H. W. Bush was President, I believe)President Obama must demand that a running scoreboard be set in Times Square listing daily the gun deaths in America! Congress must pass Obama's proposal on gun control. Now! Not 10 years later!

 

Roy Wetherington

 Tifton