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It’s with a heavy heart I write this letter. Last weekend over a 100 people were shot in the U.S. — a sad commentary about what’s going on in the country for sure. So when I started to write this little opinion piece about mass shootings, gun control, etc., I wanted to know how many federal gun laws there are on the books. I researched for a few minutes. I found some proclaiming 20,000. I saw some dispute with that number, so I tried to find the actual number. After a few more minutes of searching something came to me. There really only needs to be one law. Don’t shoot people! Plain and simple. Doesn’t matter what kind of gun, where you got the gun, how many you have or who the victim is or what color they are. Don’t shoot people! Murder is murder. It’s illegal, immoral and is not tolerated by our laws. It’s our right per our founding documents to bear arms. It’s against the law to murder people. So when someone is murdered with a gun, they’ve broke the law. Arrest them. Give them the right to a fair and speedy trial, a jury of there peers, render the verdict, sentence or release the suspect and get on with it! The bottom line is, we don’t have a gun or a law problem, we have a people problem. (Three people stabbed in our community yesterday.) Nobody wants to deal with that though. Do they? Unless you think “hate crime” is dealing with it. That’s for another writing. Love don’t hate, and we can end murder. Thanks for the forum. 

Doug Warner

Albert Lea