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How to reduce gun violence?

About 15 years ago, I toured the French Polynesian Islands and learned that, by law, not many people own firearms. Everywhere I went, people were content without swaggering around with guns on their hips. I have never read a news report of citizens protesting their country’s stringent gun control laws.

In 2009, only one islander was a homicide victim by any means other than a firearm. The annual rate of homicide in French Polynesia is an incredible one per 250,000 people, according to GunPolicy.org. My fellow Americans, doesn’t that look like a good thing to you? Imagine what that rate would look like in Spokane, population 212,000. Not even one person a year would die by another’s hand.

As it is, Spokane’s homicide rate is about one a month, and firearms are the usual weapon of choice to take another person’s life. I wring my hands, scratch my head and wonder — what can we possibly do to reduce gun violence in Spokane, in America?

Maggie Sullivan

Spokane

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