I would like to address the 30-plus column inches of opinion by Chris Carlson in the June 15 edition of The Press.

While I completely understand Mr. Carlson’s frustration with yet another horrific terror attack on U.S. soil, his opinion as to what should be done to address it is totally misdirected.

Yet again, a self-radicalized Muslim terrorist carefully selects a known gun-free location filled with innocent people to do his part to advance the global caliphate’s desire of a world dominated by Islam. And Mr. Carlson’s response (as well as President Obama’s, Attorney General Jay Johnson’s, the mainstream media’s, et al) is not to address the person/people responsible, but to attack the National Rifle Association and make another feel-good attempt to infringe upon the constitutional rights of law-abiding Americans.

This is not a gun control problem. It is a moral narcissism problem.

What we have here is a stellar example of what happens when an incompetent administration systematically weakens the national security capabilities of our country in the name of political correctness. They say and believe that what they are doing is good, regardless of the mounting body count to the contrary.

Completed terror attack after terror attack, many others that were thwarted by law enforcement, all by radical Muslim terrorists have repeatedly occurred since President Obama took office, and during a press briefing June 13 about the Orlando investigation, FBI director James Comey has the audacity to say that, “he doesn’t think there was anything the FBI could have done differently in the wake of this shooting.” Really? I’m sorry, but that attitude is totally unprofessional, and totally unacceptable. Over the past few years, dozens have been killed, dozens more wounded, and there is nothing you would do differently Mr. Comey? How comforting. Any president that was truly interested in the security of this nation would fire Comey in a heartbeat. But we have a failed president, with a failed administration that is clinging to failed, politically correct policies that are proving on an all-too regular basis that our nation is more vulnerable than ever.

As to gun control and banning “assault rifles” (a misnomer at best), President Bill Clinton signed a federal assault weapons ban (AWB) in 1994 that was in place for 10 years. According to multiple studies conducted afterward, it had no measureable effect on gun crime. Here are just a couple of independent examples listed on Wikipedia:

“The Task Force on Community Preventive Services, an independent, non-federal task force, examined an assortment of firearms laws, including the AWB, and found ‘insufficient evidence to determine the effectiveness of any of the firearms laws reviewed for preventing violence.’ A 2004 critical review of firearms research by a National Research Council committee said that an academic study of the assault weapon ban ‘did not reveal any clear impacts on gun violence outcomes.’ The committee noted that the study’s authors said the guns were used criminally with relative rarity before the ban and that its maximum potential effect on gun violence outcomes would be very small.”

“In 2004, a research report submitted to the United States Department of Justice and the National Institute of Justice found that should the ban be renewed, its effects on gun violence would likely be small, and perhaps too small for reliable measurement, because rifles in general, including rifles referred to as ‘assault rifles’ or ‘assault weapons,’ are rarely used in gun crimes.”

Mr. Carlson’s knee-jerk reaction suggesting that gun owners should undergo strict licensing, mandatory training, and subjective psychological scrutiny by gun safety class instructors, etc., flies in the face of the Second Amendment and has been proven time and again, over and over, ad infinitum to accomplish nothing wherever such regulations have been implemented in this country — see Chicago as a prime example.

Creating more bureaucracy, more costs, more capricious and subjective rules and regulations will do absolutely nothing to stop a committed individual that is willing to die in the commission of their act of terror. Nothing!

The banning or over-regulation of an inanimate object will do nothing to stop what is happening in our country. These seventh century throwbacks will and do utilize whatever weapon is available to them to commit their attacks — guns, knives, bombs, fire, planes, poisons, biological weapons, cars, clubs, rocks, pressure cookers, whatever. If you don’t believe me, ask an Israeli! You can ban everything but cream puffs and marshmallows, and they will still find a way to kill innocent people in the furtherance of their twisted ideology.

I think a little serious thought and logical, common-sense analysis needs to be done before we allow our lawmakers to make us even more vulnerable than we already are.

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J.D. Gaines is a Coeur d’Alene resident.