Letter to the editor: We must make it more difficult for criminals to get guns

It is quite obvious that whatever the government is doing now is not working. Instead of pushing their own individual agendas, for once it would be nice if our elected leaders would find common ground and put our children first.

It has become embarrassing and scary to be a parent in the United States because of the lack of political will to keep our children safe. Most of all, parents feel helpless.

Is it a gun problem? Yes. Guns have moved past cancer and vehicle crashes as the leading cause of the death for children.

Is it a criminal problem? Yes. Most of the perpetrators of school shootings have had a troubled past.

Despite what the extreme right and left will tell you, both can be true. Two wrongs don’t make a right.

It’s impossible to stop every criminal before they commit a crime, but it’s not impossible to make things more difficult for criminals. We have all seen the stats that almost all of these school shootings have had assault-style rifles used as the weapon. Why can’t our leaders look at the facts and make it nearly impossible for these criminals to access ARs?

Americans lost the privilege of owning an AR a long time ago. We need to remove ARs from society. We can’t handle it. It’s time to make things more difficult on the criminals.

Daniel O’Brien

Squirrel Hill