GUEST COLUMNIST: Gun control may be best solution

Using a handgun and semi-automatic weapon, white supremicist Benjamin Nathaniel Smith took the life of a Korean-American student in Bloomington, Indiana during his shooting rampage earlier this month. John Fernandez, Bloomington's mayor, fought back tears of outrage as he stared into a bank of television cameras, lamenting that his Indiana town had joined the ignoble list of gun violence victims. "What we should be very frightened about [is] that it's lawful to buy a weapon like that," said the mayor, adding that, "the incredible access to weapons of mass destruction is just astonishing to me. Why [can] a man can have access to a semiautomatic assault weapon, a handgun? I mean, what is going on?" The mayor has a point. Just what is going on? From the midwest where Smith's wreaked havoc, to Colorado where Columbine massacre took the lives of 13 people, we are a nation under siege. A 1998 study by the National Institute of Justice asserted that nearly three of every 10 high school males have at least one gun. Columbine's two students used their guns in a deadly fashion never to be forgotten. We have reached a point where anyone who wants to commit a crime has access to a violent weapon. Anyone. Any crime. Any weapon. Some might tell you that we need to pass hate crime legislation, or that we must post the Ten Commandments in every classroom, or even that we just need to reaffirm our nation's moral code. But the best first step is to give up guns. Perhaps a bit more complex than the temptingly simple Ten Commandments option, but we've no choice. The legal issues associated with banning guns are manifold. The Second Amendment, long the wellspring of gun advocates, does include the "right to keep and bear arms." But this was considered a right during a turbulant and militant period in our history. It hardly applies today. I think citizens in Columbine must be reconsidering whether this is a human right. I doubt they feel that the tragic shooting was "necessary to the security of [their] free State." Because the perpetrators of both the midwest killings and the Columbine killings died by their own hands and their own weapons, investigators turned immediately to the source of the weapons. In both instances, suspects have been charged. So the investigation of gun violence, which would presumably point us in the direction of proactive action, is screaming for gun control. In a perfect world we might eliminate racial hatred or disturbed teenagers. But in the meantime, the unlimited supply of guns is a problem this nation can and must effectively address. While the National Rifle Association, and its lackeys on Capitol Hill, fight gun control day in and day out, resources are poured into locating the source of the guns that were used to kill some 10,744 people in 1996. It seems that gun violence has our country chasing its own tail. Many, including our friends at the NRA, argue that efficiently executing existing gun laws must precede the passage of more stringent legislation. As I think Mayor Fernandez's desperation makes apparent, this is asking the American people to play its hand without a full deck. Is it not a waste of time to let the guns roam free while prosecuting thousands for using them to illegal ends? Why not just cut to the heart of the issue and make it harder for these people to get their hands on a gun? Banning guns is legally difficult and faces an uphill battle against the of Americans who do use guns responsibly. Lobbies have spent millions trotting out statistics which show that guns do more harm than good and vice-versa. We need to give gun control a serious try before we come to any conclusions based on hypothetical research. Mayor Fernandez plans to work with other Indiana mayors to implement gun control measures in his state. This is a step I would urge all Congressmen to take. Our future lies in the balance, and there's a long gun barrel staring us in the face.