To the Editor:
Re “On Guns, We’re Not Even Trying,” by Nicholas Kristof (column, Dec. 3):
The Republican interest in mental illness as a cause of violence is a transparent effort to divert attention from the primary problem: guns. I certainly concur with more resources being devoted to mental health, but it will remain impossible to identify in advance the few individuals who will go on a rampage. The San Bernardino shootings are an illustrative case.
Further, Australia and Canada, for example, have not eliminated mental illness, nor for that matter evil. Yet the citizens of these societies, so much like ours, have a small fraction of the risk of being shot, randomly or otherwise, that our people face.
Guns and our insane gun culture in this nation represent a form of domestic terrorism. Until we address it as such, nothing will change.
RICHARD WILLIAMS
Davis, Calif.
Note from KBJ: The problem is not that there are too many guns in society. It is that there are too few guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens.
