Resident: Mayor Doesn't See Connection Between Illegal Guns and Violence

To The Editor:

Several days ago the Wayne Chapter of the League of Women Voters, a national organization representing millions of families interests, held a mayoral debate at the municipal building and those of us in attendance were invited to submit any questions that we might like to see addressed by the candidates Chris Vergano, the incumbent, and Jane Hutchinson, the challenger. 

One of the many questions that in the past I have asked of the mayor that has also gone unanswered had to do with why the mayor had not aligned himself with MayorsAgainstIllegalGuns.org?

Mayors Against Illegal Guns are a non partisan organization founded by New York City Mayor  Michael R. Bloomberg and co chaired by Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino. The organization has 1.5 million citizen members and over 1,000 elected mayors who represent millions of people from their respective cities. 

When the question did come up for discussion Mr. Vergano said that the issue was a national one and not a local one and that is why he had not signed on in support of the initiative to do something about the scourges of illegal firearms loose on our streets. And as he spoke those words I thought to myself, that the mayors of towns where the most outrageous incidents of violence has occurred could not possibly think the same way as this mayor? 

I thought about the mayor of my hometown, Santa Monica, Calif., who was not a member of the organization until after an incident where five people were murdered by a person in possession of a modified large caliber side arm and modified semi automatic rifle with 1,200 rounds of ammunition and a spare receiver assembly including heat resistant gloves. 

An individual who possessed these weapons illegally by virtue of the fact that he was denied a purchase of a firearm due to a background check that revealed he was mentally unstable, an individual who had just killed his father and brother, shot up a quiet local street, hijacked a car, kidnapping the lone female driver forcing her to drive him to a local intersection where he then stepped out into the street and shot up a local municipal bus and then continued his mindless rampage through a local city college, killing three more innocent locals before he himself was  killed by local police. 

While this mayor in this town, may not see the connection between his home town and the national problem of gun violence, I do. It is not as if the individuals who robbed a local gas station on Route 23 in the night did not take a shot at a local Wayne police officer striking him in the head never happened. It is not as if a local high school graduate here was not gunned down in his car on graduation night a scant few miles away? It is not as if these violent episodes could not repeat themselves locally here again and  it is surely not as if an illegal fire arm could ever be used to commit such violence upon peaceable citizens here locally but rather nationally as the mayor sees it. 

I ask that you the voter give serious consideration to the mayor's position and why he holds such a contrary view so as to not align himself at least symbolically by signing on to Mayors Against Illegal Guns and be a part of a national and local effort to stop the violence because of illegal firearms or the illegal possession of such firearms. 

Stewart Resmer,
Wayne, NJ