When I read the headline “

Maine can advance anti-violence efforts

” on Shoshana Hoose’s April 21 Maine Voices column, it implied addressing violence. However, it quickly became obvious that the focus was not on violence at all, but on firearms.

I would point out that we have the Constitution, which established the federal government and assigned specific powers and duties for its legitimate operation. All other rights and powers remaining with the states and the people. Some, but not all, of these rights are enumerated in the Bill of Rights, including the right to keep and bear arms.

There does not exist any footnote or condition requiring peaceable citizens to receive permission from the government to exercise this or any other right. Therefore, in what seems a rare occasion, intentionally or not, the Senate vote failed to violate the Constitution. It did not “spurn” the will of the people, which the Constitution is.

Gun violence is a form of violent crime committed with a firearm. Bombings, stabbings, beatings, etc. are also violent crimes with real victims, just as deadly as shootings. Yet, curiously, the focus is on guns only.

None of the proposals at the state or federal level would have had any impact on the Sandy Hook atrocity. The suspected shooter killed his mother and stole her firearms. No law on God’s earth would have prevented that.

The decay of society’s morals and values is at the root of violent crime like Sandy Hook. We can deny it all we want, but our society is founded on Christian principles and wholly dependent on the morality and virtue of its people. To reduce violent crime, our society must restore its virtue and morality — there simply is no law that can ever do it.

 

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