Treat gun problem like opiate problem

I think our country’s leaders and citizens need to think differently about solving the problem with gun violence. The mantra I hear repeatedly is “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” This approach leads to stagnation. There is no investigation into ways to prevent these deaths. There is no standing up to the national interest groups (NRA). There is no concrete action illustrating the desire to save lives.

But let’s look at a different problem our country has tackled more proactively. I’d like to see us use this same effort with gun violence. Our leaders and citizens saw the devastating loss of life caused by the use of opiates. We didn’t hear “drugs don’t kill people, people kill people.” Instead our country agreed this was a serious problem and treated it as such. The government funded research into the problem, they stood up to the pharmaceutical companies and demanded changes, they put laws into effect to limit access to opiates. Researchers found an injection to save lives of those who overdosed.

Even though people chose to use drugs or physicians chose to prescribe drugs we didn’t avoid tackling the problem. We didn’t say that everyone has the right to have access to opiates. We need to approach gun violence in the same way. The government and citizens need to show courage and ban military style weapons. They were made for war and not for civilian life just as opiates were not made to be treated casually.

Marian Torno

Cedar Rapids