Child Journalist Says Too Much Gun Violence

Ah, to be young again. The Star-Gazette paper probably thinks it is good to have students contribute to the editorial section as part of the Star-Gazette Youth Editorial Board. Maybe it is a good way of filling the papers and Web site with content and not having to pay an actual experienced journalist. But it is interesting that Lianna Johnson, a “student at Corning West High School” would weigh in on the issue of gun control, and cite the Columbine shootings. While Ms. Johnson may no doubt have more insight into today’s high schools than most journalists today, her experience on guns is clearly limited.

 She states as a fact:

“There is no reason for a gun owner or hunter to ever need an AK-47 or military-style weapon. When these weapons are used in mass killings, they allow for even quicker death and destruction.”

First, who is to say who should own what gun in a free society? It is also annoying that Ms. Johnson like many who oppose firearms only see gun owners as hunters. Where does the collector fit in? Anywhere? Or are these items only to be relegated to museums, not that the United States has many military museums today?

The larger problem is that this editorial implies that these weapons are of the type used in many of the recent shootings in the United States. The fact is that the AK-47, while a deadly weapon in the hands of an untrained radical or revolutionary, was not been used in these shootings. Nor is the AK-47 available to the average citizen in a fully automatic, thus military style.

Some advice to this aspiring research: opinions are great, but even in an editorial, maybe do some homework and research first.