To the editor:

Every day, we hear about the increasing rate of murders and criminal activity in Hampton Roads. It’s the main topic of the local news media. It seems you take your life in your hands just to go to a fast food restaurant or the local mall.

Too often we hear the cause is poverty, the high dropout rate in schools or the high unemployment rate. Most news media and politicians are afraid to blame issues such as a lack of parental involvement, weakening moral code or the dissolution of the family structure. Drugs and gangs are often mentioned but never traced back to their more basic causes.

Our leaders in Richmond and Washington, D.C., seem intent on passing laws that will further weaken the rights and safety of the average law-abiding citizen.

Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring recently decided the commonwealth would no longer recognize the concealed carry permits of 25 other states. I’m sure this will come as good news to the criminal element in our state and may well dissuade  many people from vacationing in Virginia.

Maybe state legislators should consider some tougher laws against crimes committed with a firearm. Minimum sentences of at least five years, with no parole and no plea bargains, might be a step in the right direction, instead of the revolving-door policy that seems to prevail for many crimes.

Then we might begin to eliminate the crime epidemic plaguing our area.

Buddy Wilkins

Suffolk