Readers Write: Gun violence, free speech

Opinion editor’s note: Strib Voices publishes letters from readers online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

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Regarding Friday’s Star Tribune article “After shootings, GOP focus still mental health” (Sept. 19), I do not understand the presence of this statement in the article: “Research shows that most people with serious mental illness are not violent ... .” This is a nonstatement, as most people who do not have serious mental illness are also nonviolent. The sentence goes on: “... and a very small percentage of gun homicides are committed by people with serious mental illnesses.” Does the Star Tribune not realize that suicide is a homicide, though it usually cannot be prosecuted because the assailant is dead?

The end of the article quotes Hamline professor Jillian Peterson: “It’s 98 percent men,” she said. “If you really want to have an impact, you would target men, not transgender [people] or women.” What is this talk about “targeting?” What we need to be doing with the mentally ill is helping them and treating them. So if Peterson is arguing that we should be helping mentally ill men and not transgender people or women, I think Peterson has truly lost the plot.

As a nonviolent man with mental illness in Minnesota who supports gun control, I have never voted GOP, but I will not be voting for Gov. Tim Walz or Attorney General Keith Ellison (if he runs) in the next elections if the DFL Party remains committed to throwing the baby out with the bathwater and rejecting GOP efforts to invest in mental health care. It is a miracle for the GOP to want to invest in anything other than instilling fear in the public so it gets re-elected.

Gregory Lassow, Blaine

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Kate Bennet, Chisago City, Minn.

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Regarding a point in a Sept. 14 letter to the editor: Yes, we should be able to think of a technical solution to help prevent school gun violence, and we have. It did not take a Manhattan Project, it took a group of high school students. Vigilance Safety (vigilance-safety.org), a student organization, invented an RFID system where the embedded RFID on a gun would send a proximity alert to schools, initiating safety protocols. We could place these on churches, government buildings, community centers and more. Imagine what a big step this could be toward enforcing gun-free zones and saving lives.

Laura Fingerson, Minneapolis

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There are three main components of the process — a criminal check, a narcotic use inquiry and a self-reporting mental health question. The criminal check is simply an FBI computer check as to the applicants history. As long as the system is up to date, the applicant will get a “proceed,” “delayed” or “denied.”

In my view, the weak point of the process relies on the honor system over questions relating to drug use and mental health status. It may come as a surprise that the legalization of marijuana in Minnesota is not recognized by the federal government and thus any use will disallow a firearm purchase — if the truth is told. Any court-ordered adjudication pertaining to mental health and its diagnosis will also prevent purchase. The problem is, none of the data pertaining to the honor-system questions is accessible to the background check. Certainly the store clerk cannot ask nor can they predict the future use of a firearm. In recent years, a preapproval step has begun for the purchase of handguns and a host of semiautomatic firearms — the so-called “weapons of war.” This check is done by local law enforcement to which a card is issued and presented at the time of purchase.

It is important that the public understands the process in order to determine what the next step could become. Is society ready to modify the 1996 HIPAA Act and allow some sensitive mental health data to become part of the background check? Is it time to include a list of drugs that are prescribed to those undergoing mental health challenges? Will a misdemeanor drug possession charge get elevated so as to preclude a purchase?

These are the gray areas that society must debate as part of the issue. Nothing will be perfect and for some, they will cling to the banning of semiautomatics and high-capacity magazines. In the meantime, there will be many millions of these guns in the possession of Americans — 99.99% of whom use them responsibly. While these vexing problems will continue to be debated, it is imperative that we remain vigilant. The red-flag law is there for a purpose. Recall the 9/11 phrase: “If you see something, say something.”

Joe Polunc, Waconia

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A front-page Sept. 19 headline read, “After shootings, GOP focus still mental health: But Democrats insist stronger steps needed.”

Indeed, how wonderful it would be if we could do something to reduce or eliminate mental illness; how wonderful it would be if we could do something to reduce or eliminate crime in our society and our culture. If we could manage such a thing we could eliminate our fear of inanimate objects, like guns, knives, clubs, and cars, used by some criminals and mentally ill folks, to kill people.

Sen. Ron Latz, DFL-St. Louis Park, says, “The GOP has been consistent in indicating that it’s about the people and not the guns.” He’s saying the GOP wants to treat the cause of the problem, not a symptom of the problem. Sue Abderholden, executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness Minnesota, says, “Every time there’s a mass shooting, my stomach drops, my heart stops, because I just know the focus is going to turn to mental illness.”

Every time there’s a mass shooting, my stomach and my heart do the same thing as Abderholden’s, except that I just know the focus is going to turn to more gun control laws; laws that in the past seem to have solved nothing but have burdened the freedoms of the approximate 90 million law-abiding gun owners.

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I have three major extracurricular activities every week.

In one, I am a fellow student (class of 12) with the widow of one of the murdered Burnsville police officers. Another of my volunteer gigs involves me working with just one other person. She is extremely close to the family of an Annunciation student who suffered a major brain injury. She is also currently deeply involved as a volunteer with all of the student body programs now underway at Annunciation to “emotionally rehab” (if there is such a thing) these poor kids who witnessed murder.

This one heck of what I would describe as a sick “Seven Degrees from Kevin Bacon.”

Except it’s two degrees for me. Two very small gigs I do with just a handful of other people. What are the odds.

What are the odds?

We live in a very, very sick society and the canary in the cave is beyond gasping for air.

Melissa Cohen Silberman, Golden Valley

The emperor has no clothes. An administration that once claimed to be a champion of freedom of speech has shown itself to be just the opposite.

Whether it’s pro-Palestinian speech, speech that doesn’t acknowledge President Donald Trump’s infallibility and magnificent accomplishments (see lawsuits against the New York Times and others), anything but the most fawning speech from noncitizens, and now speech that doesn’t sufficiently recognize the martyrdom of Charlie Kirk ... the administration is actively silencing those who disagree with acceptable views.