Monitor: US opinion on gun control in the wake of the Columbine High School massacre

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Thursday 29 April 1999 23:02 BST
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NO AMOUNT of government regulation or parental control can protect every child from every wild whim or bizarre idea. But we can provide the tools for dealing with the conflicting messages that abound in a free society and make sure children are skilled in their use. Those tools and those skills are both more powerful and more practical than impulsive censorship can ever hope to be.

Daily Herald, Chicago

GUN CONTROL is no panacea. The strictest gun control law on the books can't make parents get more involved with their children, or reach into the angry and alienated heart of a distraught teenager. The reasons for Columbine just as surely lie in the culture of violence that pervades America, and in the moral l rootlessness that seemingly has stamped this age. But in the search for reasons for Columbine, there are things we can begin to work on, such as talking to our children, and others we can do immediately, such as stopping the flood of weapons into our communities.

Corpus Christi Caller Times

SO WE'RE going to waste taxpayers' money with some ridiculous lawsuit aimed at gun manufacturers. Why don't they also sue Bic and Zippo for arson jobs in the city each year? Perhaps the city should look at the real problems: a corrupt school board; a Third World education system; households without fathers and a liberalized society that doesn't allow children to be punished for their misdeeds.

John Williams, Detroit News

GUN BANS don't work. Gun culture has always been with us. It's the other aspects of our culture that have changed over the last 40 years. Parents are told they shouldn't spank their children, or they might be taken away from them. Children are not taught the difference between right and wrong, and when children do wrong, very often there are no consequences that rise to the level of the wrong committed. If one were to "magically" make every gun disappear in the US, the hard fact is that Americans would still kill each other - only without guns.

Benton County Daily Record

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