To the Journal editor:

The headline of an editorial in the March 30 edition of The Mining Journal posed the question of what can be done to stop school shootings, but went on to endorse legislation currently under consideration in the Michigan Legislature that will criminalize many, if not most, state gun owners and further erode the freedoms that are supposed to come with United States citizenship. Some of that legislation may, in fact, be unconstitutional.

Those laws, if enacted, will not protect anyone any more than laws already on the books. Criminals ignore laws, no matter how many there are, and so have many of the mentally ill individuals responsible for gun violence.

Passing more laws that criminals and mentally unstable people can and will break is not a solution. What more laws do is make the families of those who have lost loved ones to gun violence feel better “because something is being done.”

New laws also make politicians feel better by furthering their agendas while claiming they are “doing something to fix the problem.”

In reality, they are creating problems for law-abiding citizens, who are the only ones who will follow new laws.

Gun owners who are forced to lock up their guns and don’t have ready access to them for self-defense will become more vulnerable to criminals.

Criminals won’t lock up their guns and they don’t care if it is illegal to own certain firearms. They often steal guns they use to commit crimes.

The best way to protect school children is to have armed security guards protecting them. The presence of armed guards in schools will be a deterrent to anyone considering an attack. An improved mental health system that would better help identify potential future mass shooters would also help.

Those are real solutions to the problems our society currently faces.