To the editor:

All the latest hand wringing about gun violence belies the fact that sensible gun laws work. It is a fact that states with such laws have far fewer per capita gun deaths than states with much looser regulation. For example, according to the CDC you are 10 times more likely to die from a gun in Mississippi than you are in Massachusetts.

Most gun deaths happen behind closed doors. More than half are suicides and many homicides involve domestic violence that background checks waiting periods and safe gun storage can curtail as evidenced by the facts.

The idea that gun laws don’t work leads to fallacious ideas like one recently expressed that gun free zones don’t work and would only create killing fields for those with guns. A gun free zone requires enforcement of the zone which happens all the time. Court rooms, state legislatures, congressional office buildings are all examples of effectively enforced gun free zones.

The dramatic rise in mass shootings is still only a small portion of the daily carnage that Americans reap upon themselves but have an outsized impact from the collateral damage it inflicts. As was recently alluded to, so eloquently, in a recent letter, all of us have a new found fear, no matter how small the risk, of where are we safe if not in our schools, our malls, our churches. This fear in turn, leads to a general distrust of our fellow citizens. This fear is fed by gun “safety” instructors whose mantra apparently is, “It’s not the odds, it’s the consequences.” Every person you don’t know and some you do is a potential mass murderer – Beware!

This erosion of our sense of safety, in turn, erodes our sense of trust in our fellow citizens. This loss of trust is poison to democracy. Every government needs the trust of its people to survive and in this country We the People are the government and if we can’t trust our fellow citizens who will we turn to.

Geoff Berg
Circuit Drive
Warren