With the events that are happening in this country, I feel that I must give my opinion.

First, I want to state right off that nothing is more heartbreaking and tragic than all those young lives that were destroyed that day in Connecticut, and I would do anything to prevent this from ever happening again.

Next, I want to give a few facts about myself. As a combat, wounded Vietnam veteran, I hate killing and murder — for I have seen what they can do to the human spirit and all the pain it causes. I lost 44 friends in that conflict and was wounded myself.

Nobody who has experienced war would argue with me on this fact on killing, unless they are totally unstable.

However, just because I feel like this doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t take a life if it came down to them hurting my family, friends or any other human being, and I want to have the capability to do this if I ever have to.

Anybody who thinks gun control on assault weapons is the answer is foolish. I really wish it were that simple because I would be supporting that cause with all my soul. However, those maniacs would have obtained those guns, no matter how strict the gun laws could ever be — written and enforced.

Look at it this way, heroin, cocaine and marijuana are illegal in this country and millions of pounds of the stuff are sold every year in this country. I am not pro gun but I don’t believe that more gun control laws are going to stop any of these events from happening.

This is not being negative, just realistic.

That reasoning about banning assault weapons to prevent something like this  ever happening again is like saying that because 45,000 to 50,000 people are killed every year on American highways, we should outlaw gasoline.

It wouldn’t be long until somebody found a substitute for gasoline and everyone would be back on the roads, driving again. That is not a solution to the problem, it’s just fooling one’s self into thinking that it would be a solution.

Unfortunately, there is neither “one cause” or “one solution” to prevent these tragic events from occurring in the future.

With all these tragedies that are happening in this country involving guns, people are totally ignoring one of the main causes for this problem.

This is all the unmitigated violence and murder that we see and experience every day on television, movies, video games and even stage shows that some organizations perform for the public.

Murder is not entertainment, nor should we ever think it is. Have we become so desensitized in this country that we think murder is entertainment?

What ever happened to the moral values in life and living within those moral values? What ever happened to those moral and good, clean television shows such as “Leave it to Beaver” or “Happy Days?”

Now, I’m not foolish enough to think this is the only reason that encourages these very tragic events to happen.

What I’m saying is that being exposed to all this violence doesn’t present a productive environment to raise our children in. Nor do I think that just watching this trash every day will cause us to become murderers and mass killers. What I’m saying is it doesn’t help. I am sure there will be people out there who disagree with me, but remember, we become what we think about, observe and experience in life.

I don’t think arming people is the answer either — unless they are extensively trained and sound and ready to use a gun to end a life if that event ever presents itself to them. 

There are just some people in this world who are just unstable, no matter what they see, and these people are the real issue here. Until the medical community can identify these people, or there is some other way to identify them, one of the only recourses that we have is to be prepared and implement as best we can.  The general public is not going to like this solution. However, until we have a better way to deter these acts from occurring, what else can we do?

I would invite any intelligent reply and ideas to this letter.

BOB JACOBS