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Your Views: More laws wouldnt stop Tucson violence sparked by a dark heart
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I wrote to you in April 2007, and you published my thoughts that the horror of violence seen at Virginia Tech would likely happen again. Last weekend, we experienced in Tucson the latest episode of the plague that has gripped our nation which seems to have no realistic immediate remedy.

We see once more that someone with evident mental instability can arrange quite easily to bring our nation to grief. The design of our beloved republic disallows the protection of all at all times. Those we elect to represent us should always seek to meet with us, be available personally to us and hear face to face our concerns.

When they conduct themselves as they properly should, danger can always lurk only steps away. This is the circumstance which the openness brings. We cannot change that fact without changing the true nature of America. I am confident we will not allow episodes of violence to deter us from holding dear that which makes us the light of the world.

It is important, however, that we again consider what most of us already know. The truth is that this trend will not be swayed by more laws. Now we hear that this week a new law will be introduced to make it a felony to threaten a public official or a member of Congress. This shooter killed six and wounded 14, including a 9-year-old girl standing near still in her innocent years.

Does it make sense to think that this man would have been deterred by one more law as his finger closed upon the trigger? The weapon of choice remains not the gun, but the cold human hand connected to a dark human heart.

Might it be time to conclude that the violence that is presented with rampant abandon in our movies, television shows, video games, etc., had created within us a disease with only one cure? That only cure remains standing on a hill just outside Jerusalem and awaits our eyes and hearts to turn eastward with humility.

Michael Hawkins
Murrayville