Letter | Charleston shooting: Time to ban hand guns and fight racism

The recent shocking, stomach-turning, unspeakable attack on praying innocents at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston cries out for comment. It has to do with two obvious things.

The first is the continuation of racial prejudice in South Carolina. It is true that we had a hard time dealing with the end of the “War Between the States” because our economy was so dependent upon slaves, but that was more than 150 years ago. We all now know that slavery was horribly wrong, and we should have had time to know that prejudice is equally wrong.

Yet still I often run into people who linger in an outmoded, ignorant, mean prejudice against black people. This disgusting tragedy should call us to honestly work to end this cancer that is eating at the soul of our state. We must start confronting these misguided people by making our views heard in opposition.

We can no more stand by and condone this blight on human dignity.

The second is something we have heard before. We must totally do away with handguns - and seriously control all guns.

An automatic handgun in the hand of an allegedly sick and demented youth like Dylan Storm Roof is something than cannot be allowed.

Look at the facts. Since the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut., there have been 53 mass killings that have involved guns.

The largest of those shootings was the 2013 Navy Yard shooting where 12 died. There was also the Waco, Texas, biker gang shootout where 9 people died, and now the Charleston church shooting, where another 9 were killed.

To deny that guns are not a player in all of this is ridiculous. In countries that have strict gun laws (guns are outlawed in Great Britain), the death rate from violent acts has gone down to less than a third.

But I’m not talking about eliminating all guns; I’m talking about eliminating all handguns, which are responsible for almost all of our violent deaths. Would it not be worth it to save thousands of young lives each year who are shot on the streets?

If you think doing such a thing would be unconstitutional, remember that “bearing arms” at the time the U.S. Constitution was written referred to their one-shot muskets rather than the automatic, concealed pistol so many people have today.

We must stop hiding behind nonsense that protects our growing, violent, gun culture.

Working to stop racial prejudice and eliminating hand guns would be an appropriate response to the recent shock to our state and nation.

Anything less would just be another cop out.

The writer lives in Murrells Inlet.

This story was originally published July 4, 2015 at 2:49 AM with the headline "Letter | Charleston shooting: Time to ban hand guns and fight racism."