Way back in the 1930s my father and his brother, as well as my two older brothers enjoyed firing their .22 rifles in target practice and even occasionally allowed me to try my hand at shooting at the home made target myself. I was honored to have the privilege, to join in the fun, but beyond that, rifles, and guns in general never interested me very much.

Now, more than a quarter of a century later, things have changed. We read with horror about wild and senseless shootings in public places: movie houses, churches, grocery stores, schools. People are being shot, not inanimate targets now. Murder is the object, not the skill and fun of aiming correctly. Victims have been unaware of any danger. We are not at war, after all.

Now we read about deranged men, U.S. citizens, behaving like characters in a crime-filled movie. Such behavior befits the mentally sick, angry, hostile, drug-induced people here in the USA. Why?

And it is not only we American-born citizens who are behaving this way. Recently, a naturalized young man born in Kuwait to Jordanian parents took his gun and shot into a U.S. Navy and Marine recruiting office, killing four Marines and fatally wounding a sailor there. Why? His family said he was depressed, had lost his job, was into substance abuse. He had entered into the ideology of the Al Qaida cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki, described as a depressed stoner. In fact, he was technically a terrorist. The Al Qaida and ISIS seek out losers like him to attack our (and now his own) country. He was an enemy combatant. In a firefight with the police, he was shot dead. This surely can be described as “a new and more dangerous phase of jihadist violence against the civilized world” as reported in the Wall Street Journal.

Clearly, times have changed since the thirties. Angry people, crazy people, drug addicts now possess firearms and go about killing innocent citizens, adults and children and not only in our country, in Europe and Asia, as well.

The rules applying to gun possession are obviously insufficient. Even though the federal government is theoretically in charge of issuing such weapons, as well as local town and city police who have the duty and responsibility of issuing licenses for deadly weapons, just who are the people who receive this permission? Are they mentally healthy? Do they take drugs? Are they law-abiding citizens? Surely it is time for the rules already in place to be followed and those who receive such permission be recognized as responsible people.

It is now time for tightening up the regulations of gun possession. The Second Amendment to our Constitution states: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Obviously, our system is not at all well regulated! We are all faced with terrifying possibilities of being shot, whether we be innocent or guilty. No one has ever come to our house to see where, exactly, we keep our rifle here on the Vineyard, whether it is in a place safe from thieves.

I strongly hope our own police department looks into this difficult problem.

Heidi Schultz
West Tisbury