Letter to the Editor: Convoluted logic blames the gun, not the shooter

October 15, 2004
Cleveland Plain Dealer

In response to the Oct. 6 article "Gun used in shooting still exacting toll":

As is typical for The Plain Dealer, a gun is blamed for the tragic shooting of a 10-year-old child. Not the 14-year-old who pointed the gun at the child and pulled the trigger, and not the criminal who dumped the gun behind a grocery store. Instead, the pistol, the manufacturer that made the gun 33 years ago, as well as the long-gone store that originally sold it get the evil eye from reporter Stephen Hudak. Everyone is to blame for this tragic event except the person who actually did the shooting.

Assistant Public Defender Patrick Highland goes along with this thinking, calling guns "horrible things" while describing the 14-year-old shooter as "a good student" who was "at worst, curious and careless."

Using the same logic, if a "curious and careless" 14-year-old takes the family car out for a spin with his 10-year-old brother and smashes the car into a tree, seriously injuring the 10-year-old, might The Plain Dealer run the following headline: "Buick crashed into tree still exacting toll"?

Or perhaps Hudak would look into who had planted that tree 40 years earlier.

Gregory M. Danaher
Willoughby Hills