Misleading hoaxes distract us from the real problems

Is Alice Arambarri’s call for action merely a poorly disguised and insensitive attempt to enact more gun control on the backs and frayed emotions of the families who have suffered already? She appears to be stretching the statistics to achieve an agenda that would put more people at risk. Chicago, with its extreme gun control measures, is a fine example of how the unarmed citizens are at the mercy of the armed felons, gangs, criminals. It is wrong to manipulate the emotions of families already suffering to twist the facts merely to undermine the Second Amendment.

Arambarri did not provide the sources of her several statistics. According to the CDC, as of 2018, suicide was the 10th leading cause of death (47,000), far behind unintentional injury (169,000), diabetes mellitus (83,000) and flu/pneumonia (55,000). Firearms accounted for 51% of all suicide attempts. Still, it is terrible for the surviving family members. According to the 2018 National Survey of Drug Use and Mental Health, suicide attempts accounted for .5 percent of adults. Painfull as that is, it still is not an epidemic. The insight is drug use and mental health.

Instead a spending emotional capital on gun control, it could be more productive to invest more energy in the control of drug use and on mental health treatments. Too often, we have witnessed misleading hoaxes distract us from the real problems in our society.

JEREMY CONLIN

Cocolalla