Letters to the Editor: The breakthrough bipartisan gun deal doesn't ban assault weapons? Pathetic
To the editor: It makes me angry. How pathetic it is that Democrats have to be "happy" about getting 10 Republican senators to agree to take baby steps toward gun reform laws, because more effective measures like banning assault weapons would not get one Republican to be on board.
Do Republicans in Congress really care about children getting "pulverized" and "decapitated," as a witness described what happened in Uvalde, Texas? If they did, they would do anything to prevent such carnage — as in Canada, New Zealand and other places where background checks, licensing and semiautomatic firearm bans are the common-sense measures that have worked.
Our allies around the world must be shaking their heads at Americans' lack of common sense. Foreign terrorists must be thinking, "We don't have to kill Americans; Americans are slaughtering Americans every single day." And Republicans and the National Rifle Assn. are promulgating that more guns in the right hands is the answer.
What madness!
Mabel Wong Hogle, North Hills
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To the editor: Watching and reading about parents' and lawmakers' concerns forcefully expressed at school board meetings about children being "groomed" brought me to an epiphany.
Our children have been groomed, but not about feeling bad that they're white or encouraged to be gay. Our children have been groomed to accept being murdered at school unless they are clever enough to hide.
My 8-year-old grandson told me how proud he is that he found the best hiding place in his classroom for when a shooter gets into his school — when, not if a shooter comes for him and his classmates. Kids accept that adults (and apparently now that includes the police) cannot keep them from being murdered at school.
Ongoing fealty to the NRA has caused a national paralysis in making reasonable, effective gun laws. This has groomed our children to accept school shootings, to accept being murdered by older kids who also grew up going through those same shooter drills and know how to find those hiding spots.
We must do better.
Brenda Anderson, Novi, Mich.
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To the editor: I wonder if people are aware of the fact that there is a political side and a real side to the issue regarding guns (or anything controversial, for that matter). I wonder if they are aware of the fact that politicians will pander to peoples' emotions to get votes while doing virtually nothing to change the reality (because it often cannot be changed).
The way I see it, this country was born and raised on guns, and the notion of taking them away is ridiculous. If it were even attempted in any serious way, I think we'd have civil war.
We can control the sale of guns and secure our facilities only so far, but beyond that we are literally at the mercy of those people who, for lack of a better analysis, want revenge for being born (I got that from the movie "Tombstone").
Arthur Saginian, Santa Clarita
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
