This past Saturday, the day after a tragic shooting at a Pleasantville High School shooting, NJ Congressman Jeff Van Drew said "we must act on a common sense solution for this recurring issue." We already have the some of the strictest gun laws in the nation. If we forced every legal gun owner in the county to give up their guns, only people like the ones who did this Friday night would have them.

The problem is not the "gun culture" in America, it's a social culture that doesn't respect human life. An innocent 10 year-old boy and a 15 year-old were hospitalized with serious injuries, in a dispute over a petty argument. A GoFundMe page has been set up to offset medical costs for the 10 year-old named Micah. Of course the shooter was arrested for ILLEGAL possession of a firearm. So the answer is not further prohibiting the rights of LEGAL gun owners, but that's what states like New Jersey always do after a tragedy like this.

In states like Texas, where citizens have the right to carry a firearm and Friday night football games are much more popular and important to communities, events like this rarely happen. If someone wanted to shoot at people that person knows they'd be taken down by a number of armed people within a few feet of them. I'm not sure that more guns is the answer but some people do.

John R. Lott Jr. wrote a very popular book pointing to stats that bear out that assertion. We have a problem in this country with gun violence and anyone who thinks the issue through logically knows that more gun laws that restrict legal gun ownership don't work. It's a societal problem and one that doesn't have easy, one size fits all laws, are not the answer.

Congressman Van Drew (D-2nd District NJ) is a good man with good intentions, but he and his fellow lawmakers in D.C. don't have the answers. The problem (and the answer) is in our own communities in every state in this country. Until we come to grips with who and why people commit gun violence or any violence, there are no laws that can fix the situation. Of course our hearts go out to the families of the injured children and no one should be afraid to go to a high school football game for fear of being shot. But you're much more likely in certain places in a state like New Jersey, where illegal gun owners know they have no one to fight back if they do decide to do something horrendous like the shooter did Friday night.

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