Letter: Questions raised about regulating guns

Is gun control the answer? When we talk about banning the assault type firearms, do we include semi-automatic firearms used for hunting and target practice? When we say limit the magazine capacity to 10 rounds, how do we deal with the shooter who carries four or five 10-round magazines and can change magazines in a firearm within 2 seconds?

Legitimate firearm owners acquire their firearms through purchases from dealers, or private parties with the exchange occurring through a firearm dealer. It is extremely rare to have indiscriminate shootings and killings from these type of gun owners. Individuals bent on crime, mayhem and murder either steal them or obtain them through the black market (illegally on the street).

In California, there is a 10-day waiting period before the purchaser can take possession of the firearm. Other states have different regulations. California calls this a cooling off period, to give the purchaser time to consider the use of the firearm.

We have been fighting over these matters for decades without realizing that the gun may not be the real issue here. What causes death in America today? Is it the automobile, a club, a knife, other instrument, or could it be that man is the cause of our problems?

We need to take a longer look at the mentally deranged, or the disturbed person who can obtain a firearm anytime without going through the process. Such people exist everywhere in our communities, and we have absolutely no control over them and in most cases we are not even aware of them until after a horrible incident occurs.

Until we can correct this problem, we will always have killings and mayhem throughout our country, and in every community. We cannot continue to hold the firearm responsible.

Roy D. Whiteaker

Gun owner and firearms dealer

Yuba City