To the editor:

The president had his photo-op using children as his props. However, he didn’t touch on the real gun problem in this country, namely criminals on the streets.

Last year there were about 1,000 young adults and children murdered in just three cities: Chicago, Detroit and Washington, D.C. While this number is extreme, the same scenario is playing itself out all across the country, which is compiling an even more frightening number annually.

The recent mass shootings have sent fear throughout the population, but their numbers don’t begin to compare to the annual number of people murdered in crimes and in drive-by shootings in our streets.
No one wants to experience the sorrow that the families of the victims in Newtown, Conn., have gone through, but the larger issue is the need for tougher gun laws for the criminals perpetrating widespread violence, not an erosion of law-abiding citizens’ right to own firearms.

If the problem is going to be fixed, the emphasis needs to change, by putting some teeth into theses laws, such as making violations a federal crime.

But if we continue to listen to the president and his supporters, the only people with guns will be criminals.

Buddy Wilkins

Suffolk