Wild West fantasy is fuelling real-life slaughter on America’s streets
Re: “Jesse James and the case against gun control”, Have Your Say, yesterday.
Michael Weldon’s letter gave us some stupendously irresponsible prose to choke on. Transporting 19th-century “Wild West” folklore to the 21st is irrelevant and inappropriate, and quite frankly offensive to the innocents killed.
Much more recently than Weldon’s absurd Northfield analogy, the Las Vegas massacre resulted in the deaths of 58 people, none of whom had the wherewithal to fight back like the 19th-century citizens of Northfield, Minnesota. Then there are the 26 killed while worshipping in a church in Texas, the Sandy Hooks, the Columbines, etc, etc, etc, and on and on. Yep, let’s have the kids carrying guns too – that will sort the “bad guys” out, for sure.
In most advanced industrial economies, this kind of thing can’t happen, due largely to stringent gun control laws. I’m not going to try my patience by further explaining why, to someone who won’t listen, as all this has been re-treaded time and time and time again.
Let me say that I’m not writing as an Englishman to an Australian or an American or whomever, but as one human being to others. What will it take for some of you people to understand?
Dr Frank
