After mentally recovering recently (if one can ever recover) from the Las Vegas shooting, we visited Castanet and were further depressed by all the negative stories.

It’s not their fault; they’re just reporting the news like we do. But why is there so much doom and gloom in the world?

Castanet’s first headline read, ‘Child molester gets two years.’

After we looked at 10 or so gloomy headlines, we decided to change them to more appropriate outcomes.

So let’s start with the child molester. Our headline would read, ‘Child molester gets 10 years and banished to Siberia.’

‘Fentanyl traffickers busted’ – Our headline: ‘Court orders fentanyl pushers to live with family they addicted.’

‘23 years, still no answer’

The headline should be ‘Newborns miraculously survive being dumped in outhouse’ This is a truly heartbreaking story out of Princeton that deserves a different outcome. If only we could turn back time.

‘Judge bribed with nude pics’ Let’s change this to ‘Judge comes out of the closet, fights for gay rights’

‘Grisly discovery in woods’ Our headline would be ‘Bovine shooter banned from firearms for life’

‘From terror to medical bills’ The desired headline would read, ‘Las Vegas shooter’s estate used to pay medical bills for victims’

‘Cow abuser working again’ Should read, ‘Cow abuser banned from working with animals, ordered to clean up their crap for 12 months’

‘Run over by own stolen car’ More appropriately, ‘Thief run over by car he tried to steal’

The news was dominated by the shocking tale of Stephen Paddock who killed nearly 60 people during a mass shooting in Las Vegas. A motive has yet to be determined, but obviously Paddock suffered from mental health issues.

It was also reported that he used a device known as a “bump-stock” to transform his semi-automatic rifles to fire at a fully automatic rate. Surprisingly, these devices are legal in the U.S. On second thought, it’s not surprising because America is the land of the free – the freedom to obtain whatever gun or device you want to enhance your enjoyment of the sport. But unfortunately there is no shortage of mentally unstable people who somehow find a way to obtain permits for these weapons.

All we can say is Canada is fortunate to have strict regulations on its weapons.

Lyonel Doherty, editor