Home Should Not Be a War Zone
In combat operations in places like Afghanistan, we often confronted the specter of dangerous people with powerful weapons who were a threat to their community and to our soldiers. Our aim was to quickly determine who in that community was a legitimate actor who could be trusted with a firearm and who was not.
Today, some of our politicians and the people who back them seem to promote a culture of gun ownership that does not conform with what I learned in the military.
.. Just as something as complex as a combat operation in a war zone meant that we could not eliminate every enemy combatant or prevent every American casualty, we cannot prevent every dangerous person from getting a gun, and we cannot prevent every gun tragedy. But wouldn’t preventing many of them be worth it? I believe it would.
.. Our leaders can start by doing more to keep guns out of the hands of those who cannot be trusted to handle them responsibly. That must be our mission.
Gen. Stanley McChrystal is a former commander of U.S. and international forces in Afghanistan and of the Joint Special Operations Command, and a member of the Veterans Coalition for Common Sense.