Editor, Manteca Bulletin,
You may be wondering what guns have to do with abortion, well they don’t. Neither do guns and cancer, or guns the flu, or guns and obesity, or guns and tobacco and several other asinine comparisons made by an article, (Are guns the real problem? ‘You can’t regulate evil’) on Oct. 18 by Chuck Roots.
I do not normally follow “Roots in Ripon”, a column that mixes Right Wing politics and what sounds like Evangelical Religion, but the title caught my eye. I pretty much already knew this would be another anti-gun-control rant by this Far Right proponent following the Las Vegas mass killings but I wanted to see just how extreme Roots would go and how he would manage to insert “Jesus” into the whole thing. (Every article I have ever read from Roots manages to insert “Jesus” in there somewhere). I wasn’t surprised in this piece either. Roots writes: “...in his sacrificial death on the cross to save me (and you) from a life that, left unchecked, is fully capable of committing the worse deeds imaginable”.
Apparently Roots thinks the mass killings of children in schools or the Vegas killings are not included in “the worse deeds imaginable” and we should leave gun-control up to Jesus. Good luck with that and getting saved from even more “worse deeds imaginable”. I can guarantee there will be more coming our way if something isn’t done soon and I am not talking about the prayers Republican lawmakers and people like Roots like to send out to victims’ families after every gun mass killing but will still allow people on “no fly lists” to still be allowed to buy as many assault weapons, and those “bump stocks” used by the Vegas shooter, plus as much ammunition as they want. Think about that for a second, does this sound OK to you?
There has never been legislation brought to the floor of Congress to take away peoples weapons. Remember how some people freaked out when President Obama was elected and they thought President Obama was going to take away everyone’s guns? Well eight great years went by and the last time I checked all my guns are still in the gun safe and all my ammunition is still in the locked safe box. Yes, I own guns. I was raised in Arizona and New Mexico where guns are still as common as almond trees in the valley. I got my first 22 Single Shot when I was in the 7th. grade. While I was in the military, I was given several Expert ribbons on the gun range during basic training and beyond. Extensive background checks for those wanting to purchase guns is not asking too much, is it?
Roots goes on to list several gun statistics, which if you bother to research, look highly suspect. Roots claims only 9,067 deaths with 6,000 of those suicides, actually just in 2013 there were 73,505 nonfatal firearm injuries and 33,636 deaths. It doesn’t matter if they were homicides or suicides, they are still dead, killed by a gun. Between 2006 and 2016 there were 323 mass killings, that’s not including some of the more recent mass killings such as Las Vegas. Roots also tries to trivialize gun deaths by comparing his flawed statistics with the population of the U.S. Reminded me of how Trump tried to trivialize the deaths in Puerto Rico with the deaths in Katrina. (He called Katrina a “real” catastrophe — same kind of mindset and not surprising. Did you know that in Japan, where there are stringent gun laws, there were 11 gun deaths in 2008? Yes, 11...
Roots closes his fable with the old “Sarah Palin” rant about how only good guys with guns can stop bad guys with guns and how a “Well-armed society is a safe society”, really Roots?? The U.S is about as armed as it can be, do you feel safe from gun violence? I bet the people in Las Vegas don’t feel very safe. Roots then puts the icing on, with the asinine statement about the 1st Amendment, freedom of religion, etc... is protected by the 2nd Amendment. Really? Guns are all that protects you and your bible?

Larry Baca
Manteca