On Saturday Dec. 22 Sheriff Chuck Curry had a front-page statement in the Daily Inter Lake under the headline, “Sheriff stresses gun safety.”

Being sheriff he is certainly entitled to front-page coverage and to speak about gun safety. But the motive to question responsible citizens, asking us if we have a gun safe and a lock on our gun is questionable since he said the shooter gained access to a semi-automatic AR-15, a Glock 10-millimeter and a Sig Sauer 9-millimeter from his mother, and that they were not in a safe and had no lock on them. These are not ordinary guns that average Mrs. Jones would purchase to defend herself.

Then he mentioned his deputies were at our schools Friday Dec. 21 to ease concerns about rumors regarding violence that might happen because of the Mayan calendar ending that day, interpreted by the followers that it would be the last day, or the end of the world. He said on Wednesday (that would be the 19th, or five days after the shooting that killed 20 children and 6 school teachers in the Connecticut school) that, whereas his department normally was receiving 20 applications for concealed weapons permits, they received 80, or four times the normal applications for concealed weapons permits.

I wonder if the sheriff believes the gun permits increased four times because of the Mayan calendar date of the world ending on Friday, 12-21-12? Or if the citizens were concerned because there is overwhelming evidence that all the killers of this type (there are about 200 cases in the past decade) were using or were on psychotropic drugs or other brain-altering medications?

It seems unreasonable that people would go out several days before the end of the world to purchase a gun. It seems more logical the reason why concealed weapons permits increased four times and why people are standing in line all over the country, and especially here in the Flathead to purchase a gun, not the type for hunting, would be to secure a weapon they can use to protect themselves from unstable people.   

I would like to ask several questions. Do our law-enforcement officers have locks on their weapons? I believe the answer is no because they need to be able to make a decision to shoot in a moment of time when someone may come against them that has a gun. Should we put locks on our guns, or have them locked up in a gun case? What protection would we have if a person came into our home or business with a gun, and we had a lock on our gun, or our gun was locked up in a gun safe? Chances are the gunman would know if we had quick access to our gun. Our law-enforcement officers don’t carry a gun so they can kill a person for no unnecessary reason, and neither do responsible law-abiding citizens carry or need quick access to our gun so we can kill another person for no unnecessary reason.

The problem is that our government, schools and society have been leaving God out in helping us make major decisions, plus the increased use of psychotropic drugs and brain-altering medications to treat those in our midst that have depression or are mentally unstable. A fire extinguisher that is not ready for immediate use to put a fire out is as useless as a firearm that needs to have the lock taken off or has no bullets in the gun when a person confronts us quickly with their gun, and especially so when they know we are unprepared to defend ourselves. We’re for gun safety for our children and ourselves but we’re not for gun safety or gun control that will lead to gun confiscation that has happened in most of the countries around the world.

Lane is a resident of Kalispell.