Carrie Swing: It's time for gun control

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- When Sen. Joe Manchin nailed a piece of legislation he didn't like to a tree and then shot it in a 2010 campaign commercial, I was angry. Even though he used a legal hunting rifle and apparently arranged to discharge it in a "safe" way, he also sent out an extremely harmful message: It is OK to use a gun to solve a problem. Don't like something? Shoot it, and it will go away.

When Officer Deriek Crouse was gunned down in a Virginia Tech parking lot in 2011, my son was living in Blacksburg. He had been attending VT but that day was working in Roanoke. I was between classes at Dunbar Middle when my phone rang and it was my son telling me that he was at work and OK. Gun violence, to me, is not some remote thing -- it has come too close for comfort.