Opinion: Gun violence is a serious health issue for certain Bay Area students

[billh58]

Across our country, young people and their families are staging coordinated “March for Our Lives” demonstrations following the murder of 17 at a Florida High School to demand policymakers do more to protect them and their schools by restricting access to guns, particularly assault-style weapons.

To many, the ease of access to guns is an issue of rights to own guns and public safety.

It is also an issue of health equity.

Limiting access to guns and reducing the constant threat of gun violence is needed not just to protect schools, but is paramount to giving people and families living in low-income communities in Oakland and Alameda County the same chance at health and wellness as realized in less impoverished neighborhoods.

https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2018/03/23/opinion-gun-violence-is-a-serious-health-issue-for-bay-area-students/

NRA apologists are claiming that "guns are just a tool," and actually have no part in the gun violence epidemic in this country because they are just inanimate objects. Part of that argument is true, but easy access to dangerous and lethal "tools" is the defining other (and most important) side to the argument, and always has been.

We regulate all manner of dangerous, and potentially dangerous, products but the right-wing gun lobby has bought and paid for politicians to enact legislation protecting gun manufacturers and dealers from litigation or meaningful safety regulation.

This is all on the verge of changing thanks to our young people and their awareness of the dangers that the right-wing gun lobby imposes on our society. Support the "March For Our Lives" movement, and the solutions they are proposing. Our children's lives depend on a future without guns on our streets and in our schools.