I believe we have a serious gun violence problem in America. This problem is documented by the statistic that more Americans have died by domestic gun violence since 1968 than have been killed in all American wars combined. To solve the gun violence problem a recent letter to the editor asserted that all we needed to do was to get the "crazy people" off the street. This tact seems to follow what I believe to be the red herring espoused by the NRA to detract from the real causes of our gun violence. The facts are that only about four percent of gun deaths in the U.S. are caused by mentally ill people, leaving about 96 percent caused by "normal" people. Scapegoating the mentally ill is not only factually wrong, it is potentially hazardous in that it diverts attention away from the many factors, including easy gun availability that contribute to the vast majority of our gun violence. Getting more and better treatment for our mentally ill is an important and worthy cause for our society, but it is not the solution to the problem of gun violence in America.

Ronald Kleinknecht

Bellingham