Sacramento needs to do more to end gun violence

As we go to press with this edition of SN&R, another person has died in a spate of local shootings that, in the space of a single March weekend, injured 14 and killed four.

A police spokesperson said the only commonality between the shootings was that most of them were drive-bys. We’d like to point out another commonality: guns.

There’s no indication that someone’s pheasant-hunting shotgun or deer rifle was used in these shootings. Instead, what was used were weapons designed to shoot bullets at people. Oh, perhaps the stated intention in their production was “target shooting” or “law enforcement” or even “home defense.” But that’s not what happened.

These handguns ended up on the street in the hands of people who, for whatever reason (and there’s reason to believe that some of these shootings were gang-related), decided to shoot them at people.

Our sympathies lie with the victims of violence, no matter from where it comes. But sympathy isn’t enough to stop the carnage. We need to get the guns off the streets as a form of triage, a bandage to stop the blood loss from the underlying problems that lead to violence. Perhaps then we can begin to tackle the more complicated issue of the social disengagement and hopelessness that leads to violence of any kind.