Once again, we have state legislators trying to solve a major crisis in Delaware that does not exist. I refer to Senate Bill 3, which would require a permit to purchase a handgun. Sponsors say this is needed because of shootings in Colorado and Georgia. What about Delaware? Most firearm violence here occurs in sections of Wilmington and Dover. Why can’t they get these people off the street? Sponsor Sen. Elizabeth “Tizzy” Lockman, D-Wilmington, tells us that high-powered weaponry is flowing into our neighborhoods. If she knows that, why not stop the criminals who are doing that?
Mass shootings? One here that I can think of, at the county courthouse in Wilmington, where there were armed guards and metal detectors. School shootings? None that I am aware of. Sponsor of Senate Bill 6 Sen. Dave Sokola, D-Newark, cites statistics from the National Institutes of Health, Johns Hopkins University and a Delaware Coalition Against Gun Violence survey. How many gun owners participated in this survey? How about statistical information from the Delaware State Police, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives or the FBI, about how gun violence has been on the downturn in the last 20 years? Nothing from them!
Not restrictive of our rights? How long will it take to get an application, schedule a training class and process the whole thing? If you are in desperate need, you’ll be dead before you ever get your approval. We don’t have a gun problem; we have a people problem, a very small portion of the population that government doesn’t seem to be able to control. I think they could if they wanted to, but it’s easier to plea-bargain. I suspect the real goal is to totally disarm the citizens of the United States. The courts don’t seem to be enforcing the Constitution anymore.
Stanley Lakey
Wilmington
