Guns, Donna’s Law and Preventing Suicides
Gun violence is tragic in all of its dimensions; certainly in facilitating suicides. If despondent people will self-advocate to remove gun threats, the authors will have made a notable, lifesaving impact (“A Libertarian Approach to Reducing Gun Deaths,” Review, Oct. 17). More generally, they are also speaking to a wider perspective on gun-related deaths that this issue needs to be reframed as one of public safety, not control. Regardless of entrenched positions, gun responsibility isn’t tantamount to gun confiscation. The model for personal responsibility is well known to all of us: regulation of our automobiles. If you don’t have a driver’s license and proof of insurance, sorry, you can’t buy a car. Do the same with gun ownership. Require licensing and liability insurance with discounts earned for taking gun-safety classes, use of trigger locks, secure storage via gun safes and off-site storage, etc. Greg Houser