I agree with the letter published Jan. 26, “Gun laws won’t work, just like drug laws don’t.”

If President Obama and others really want to reduce gun violence, they should focus on what government already controls: itself. Virtually all private, law-abiding gun owners in this country are peaceful, nonviolent people.

On the other hand, the government routinely kills people in this country and around the world. Thousands of innocent civilians worldwide have been killed by American drones and what Obama euphemistically calls “kinetic military action.”

The crime at Sandy Hook Elementary School was truly a tragedy, but an even greater tragedy took place 20 years ago in Waco, Texas, when Attorney General Janet Reno’s FBI killed 76 men, women and children. That doesn’t include the six people killed two months earlier by the dysfunctional Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

Although Reno claimed she took “responsibility,” she is still walking around free instead of occupying a prison cell for committing mass murder.

Gun control is not about reducing violence; it is about reducing the ability of peaceful citizens to defend themselves against criminals. And the greatest criminal in our time is government, which explains its zeal to disarm us all.

Dan Maiullo

Tinton Falls