Gun Control and Violence

A young teen-age witness is shot by a death squad. An off-duty police officer, a neighbor, is killed patrolling our back yard. A fellow sister of the community is assaulted and seriously injured with a deadly weapon while giving directions sitting in her wheelchair. An immigrant is murdered for his daily bread.

We, as individual men and women, have been placed in this metropolis by chance or choice to form a community. As a community we live under a set of rules that are designed to ensure freedom from unwarranted government intrusion and freedom from violence.

One fundamental rule that ensures freedom from violence is that one individual shall not murder another member of the community. If that occurs, the community owes a duty to satisfy the victim’s cravings for revenge; ensure that such conduct not reoccur, and finally that the perpetrator be summarily punished within the bounds of the judicial process.

Capital punishment, swift and regardless of the method used, should be the only solution. Morally and fiscally the community cannot afford to keep these cowardly misfits. And anything less will lead to vigilantism.

MIGUEL MONTES JR.

Burbank