Letters to the editor: After another US mass shooting, would weapons bans make people safer?

US President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden visit a memorial at Robb Elementary School to pay their respects to the victims of the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas. Photo / AP

OPINION

In the wake of yet another tragic, heartbreaking mass shooting, this time at an elementary school in Texas, I saw a member of the United States NRA being interviewed on TV.

For once I agreed with something one of their members said. He said guns are not the problem. It's the lunatic behind a weapon that needs to be brought under control.

Our Government reacted to the mosque attacks in Christchurch by outlawing certain weapons, and hundreds of law-abiding citizens handed them in for destruction.

But what happens to the weapons owned by those determined to step outside of the law and secretly retain possession of their probably illegally obtained firearms?

Surely, these are the type of people who pose a real threat to our society.

Confiscating firearms from responsible citizens is no guarantee we will never see a repeat of the likes of the Christchurch massacre.

What is needed is much tighter controls over who may own a firearm and more stringent scrutiny of potential owners.

In the meantime, a rigorous search must be mounted to ensure that anyone currently in illegal possession of a firearm must have it confiscated.

Wholesale banning ownership of particular types of firearms will not necessarily make us any safer.

Ian Young
Pāpāmoa Beach

Rubbish saga

And so the Tauranga rubbish saga goes on. When I lived in Te Puna West I purchased a plastic bag with my weekly shop and, having placed it at the kerb on the right day, that was the last I saw of it.

Since then I started living at a retirement village in Pyes Pa. There were four companies doing the rubbish collection with their own colour of bags.

It was decided to only use blue bags as their pickup truck was smallest and would cause less damage to the street kerbing in the village.

The village also collected glass and spent batteries, taking them to the transfer station in Maleme St. It all worked very well as a ratepayer.

Now we have another system; plastic wheelie bins, red or yellow of various sizes together with blue bottle containers and green food scraps buckets, all of which have to be brought back inside and all seem to have separate trucks visiting each residence.

The transfer station in Maleme St has closed to the public.

Peter Turner
Pyes Pa

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