Editor, Manteca Bulletin,

 The gun control advocates are really taking aim at the wrong target when it comes to controlling violence by guns. What they want is to ban all guns made for combat or war.

That is just the start, but it covers every gun ever made. They call it a "weapon".  Giving this some thought, during the 1970s there was a school bus driver in Chowchilla that was hijacked a school bus full of small children and in a truck trailer container ground. The families were very lucky that the container was found. If those children were never found and they all died in that container, what was the weapon used? Was it the container’s fault? Maybe it would have been the container manufacturer’s fault.

 Flash forward to 911. Almost 3,000 people died. That was not a terrorist attack. It was plain first degree murder. What was the weapon used? Some sick person flew a plane full of innocent people into the Twin Towers. Was it the planes’ fault or the persons at the controls? Few now remember Pearl Harbor. Over 2,400 soldiers and civilians died. What was the weapon used? How many people die on the highways, either by accident, carelessness, alcohol related or drugs every day? Look at World War II in Germany. How many people died in the death camps? What was the weapon used there?

 People do not need a gun to kill people. They only need one thing. In every one of those examples, it was the 'will" of some sick person, people, cult or whatever you want to call it. I do think many of us have heard, "If there is a will, there is a way".  So, figure it out for yourself. But remember what the Japanese generals said when they were asked why they did not attack or invade the West Coast. Their reply was, "we were afraid, behind every blade of grass, was a gun". So now imagine, at that time or even today, if the lawn was mowed clean of all guns, would we have been attacked then or maybe even after the grass is free of all guns today?

Gary Duran

Manteca

Jan. 11, 2013