By Ron Sinclair
Last Friday, I copied and pasted on Facebook a summary of actions the current administration has taken to reduce or eliminate federal support for gun violence prevention efforts across multiple agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the Department of Justice (DOJ). The summary included facts and statistics that revealed the efficacy of these programs put in place by congress that had been cut by this administration.
I included a picture from the original essay used by the author, who happened to be Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. I subscribe to his columns on Substack because I find his comments to be thoughtful and his insights to be thought provoking. I also appreciate the maturity, humility and intelligence with which he broaches his topics. This column was no exception, so I shared it in its entirety, and gave him credit for the comments as I always do when sharing what someone else has written and published.
(This is the photo)
Within a few hours of sharing, my Facebook feed blew up with reactions and comments. I have never shared anything that had such a quick, large response. I try to always faithfully read the comments people take the time to write. There were an incredible number offensive comments, and as I began going through them, I also took the time to go to the profile page to see who the commenters were. Most had only a post or two on their page, with a minimum of followers and even fewer friends. In their case, I figured that my post had triggered bots through Facebook’s algorithms. Others were right winged folks who obviously felt passionate about their gun rights. Unfortunately, many of their comments were also vulgar, threatening and just downright offensive. I began removing comments and blocking bots. As the day progressed, the barrage intensified. At one point, even after removing those I found offensive, I still had over 200 on this one single post. And any legitimate attempt commenters made to inject reasonable points of view on “either side” had been met with the same kinds of responses I had removed and blocked. Honest discourse was impossible. Saturday afternoon, I changed the post from public to one that allows only friends to comment, and the barrage stopped. But by then, what had been intended as a serious attempt to shine a light onto actions taken that limit our ability to curtail gun violence in the US, had evolved into a theater of the absurd.
There are sensible steps that can be taken to curtail gun violence in our country. Some of those steps are now unrealistic because of the sheer number of assault style weapons already in the hands of far too many of us. Assault weapons are designed for one reason only, and that is to produce maximum lethality against human beings. They work exactly as designed, including the trajectory taken by the projectiles as they strike flesh.
We live on a farm. I am a gun owner because there are times when it is absolutely necessary for protection against predators. We have seldom used it, but we own a gun. I served in the US Army, and trained as a small arms repairman. For those familiar with military lingo, that was my MOS designation. I know a bit about guns, and our right to bear arms. And I can honestly say that I believe that gun violence in this country is completely out of control to the point that I would gladly give up my right to bear arms if that’s what it took to stop the massacre and slaughter of innocent people, especially children in our schools.
There are sensible steps that can be taken to curtail gun violence in our country. Some of those steps are now unrealistic because of the sheer number of assault style weapons already in the hands of far too many of us. Assault weapons are designed for one reason only, and that is to produce maximum lethality against human beings. They work exactly as designed, including the trajectory taken by the projectiles as they strike flesh. Still, I believe there are common sense steps that we could take if we had the willpower and the desire to do so without denying our rights. Instead, we are passing more and more laws that expose us to gun wielding “bad guys” and “good guys” in every single public venue we inhabit. We’re not safe from gun violence anywhere in our country.
In 2025 there were 38.846 people killed by gun violence in the US. 1,268 of those were children aged 17 and under. Those numbers do not include suicide, and are likely fewer than actual deaths, because the Trump administration shut down several methods of reporting as they loosened not only health studies, but tampered with systems reporting gun violence. With new actions taken as provided in the summary I shared, future statistical reporting will be even harder to gather. And future theories on how to reduce unnecessary gun violence based upon actual data will suffer.
When our elected officials did nothing except offer “thoughts and prayers” after the Sandy Hook massacre, I did my best to not lose hope that we would eventually tackle an out of control issue. In the 12 years since Sandy Hook, 2,125 students in grades K-12 have been shot on school grounds. So far this year, there are 96 more. [1]
Do we love our guns more than we love our children? When will we reach our limit? Or is there no limit to what we are willing to accept?
Meanwhile we’d rather insult, attack and vilify others than to have a serious adult discussion. I don’t think it says much positive for us as a society. Sadly, it seems that our children aren’t the only ones who need to grow up.
[1] https://k12ssdb.org/all-shootings
© Ron Sinclair, July 2026
Appalachian Chronicle 
Mr. Sinclair concludes his extremely poignant, relevant and MUCH NEEDED commentary on gun violence in the USA by writing that “…children aren’t the only ones who need to grow up”. I would turn that around by writing that “a vast number of adults in this Country need to become more child-like”. Children by and large have an innate sense of what is dangerous, and what must be avoided as harmful. If more adults approached gun violence from the straightforward simplicity of a child, I feel we would make great strides in reducing gun violence, ESPECIALLY towards innocent children!