The Newtown, Conn., tragedy is truly heartbreaking and should never have happened. Making sense of a sick mind is nearly impossible, but what is equally sickening is the hysteria surrounding the "gun culture" as being responsible and the immediate calls for something, anything to be done to reduce gun violence. Bans, background checks, firearm registration and even confiscation have been suggested. So I researched how the United States compared to the rest of the world in homicides and homicides committed by firearms.

Here are the facts from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes 2011 official report. There were 468,000 homicides committed worldwide, with the continent of Africa leading in both homicides and homicides committed by firearms. After reading this, you could conclude that Africa is incompetent and has no laws regulating firearms, and you would be wrong. As per the Firearm Control Act of 2000 there are background checks for all firearm applications, licensing of all weapons through the police, competency tests certified by licensed officials, and physical inspections of the owners' premises.

Licensing and regulation typically takes two years to process which effectively creates a 2 year waiting period. Now I see why the Kenyan in the White House wants to adopt similar regulation here ... it's worked so well in his home continent. Bad people do horrendous things and new gun control laws won't do a hing except allow for a warm and fuzzy feeling because something/anything was done.

John Davis

Belleville