May 30th, 2022

Good Morning Folks,

    It is with great trepidation that I write about recent events in America. We should be spending Memorial Day honoring fallen soldiers instead of burying children slaughtered in yet another mass shooting. The list of massacres is overwhelming…schools, shopping centers, grocery stores and musical performances…as well as everyday killings in many urban centers around the nation.

    America has long had a fascination and an adoration for firearms, with the constitution firmly affixed with an amendment to guarantee the right to ownership. As children growing up in the 1950s we were given toy guns as presents….and when we were older, B-B guns which could actually inflict damage. I was in the woods near Gravel Rd. one day with a friend, Bobby Lewis. We had our BB guns in tow and we saw something flash in the woods. We both took aim and fired. When we rushed over to examine our kill, there lay a dead mother robin….we both adamantly denied responsibility because neither of us wanted to believe that we actually killed something. I never fired a gun after that.

   What has happened in America is not the norm around the world. Even more unfortunately, the issue has become highly divisive and of course, political. When the second amendment was written it was to enable people to have musket rifles to protect themselves in case a tyrannical government started to push them around. Now it seems like people feel they need AR-15s to protect themselves… and all of this has lined the pockets of the manufacturers. Not everyone is questioning the right to own a firearm but, just as we license boats and we license cars and motorcycles, this is for the protection of the honest user. If someone cannot wait for the process to get a license and to go through the proper training and channels then one probably should not be owning or possessing something of such magnitude. The fact that this has become a political issue has levied a shame upon our system of government that is unprecedented. The use of tragic events for political gain is perhaps the most despicable aspect of American politics….and it exists on both sides of the aisle. This is the same as the issue on abortion very frankly. It is taking a sensitive and very human topic and using it to win votes from your constituents. It is just obscene. I have no answer, but my heart grows heavy for my grandchildren and the future generations inheriting this mess.

Best regards,

John Bernunzio