Threat of shooting at Portsmouth High School must be a wake up call: Letters

Threat to Portsmouth High School a wake up call. It's time to take action against gun violence.

April 17 — To the Editor:

We can and should celebrate the quick work of law enforcement, which prevented a potential mass shooting at Portsmouth High School this week. Yet, recent news of how much weaponry the suspect was carrying should rock all of us to our core.

According to today's Portsmouth Herald, the suspect was carrying an assault rifle (Radical 5.56 RG15) and a shotgun (Chiappa Firearms) when he was arrested on Thursday. This is in addition to the pistol that he used in his video threat and discarded in the woods earlier that day.

In his car, he was also carrying:* A Sig Romeo Red dot sight * Four boxes of assorted ammunition in a bag from Kittery Trading Post; * Six buckshot shotgun rounds:* A box of 22-caliber rimfire ammunition* Camouflage body armor* 50 rounds of 40-caliber Smith & Wesson ammunition

* another box of 5 shotgun rounds.

* a 5.56 magazine

* 13 additional rounds of 40-caliber Smith & Wesson ammunition within a handgun magazine.

I am devastated to think of what might have happened if police had not caught this man. I am also devastated by the continual drumbeat of mass shootings around the country −in our schools, shopping malls and places of worship.

Clearly, the solutions are multi-faceted, but we must start by passing and enforcing laws that will keep guns out of the hands of people who are unsafe. There are many solutions, including red flag laws, buy-back programs for assault rifles, and more. But it will take strong concerted action from all of us to get our elected leaders to take action. The gun lobby is strong in Concord. We need to be stronger.

Please join Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense on May 3 for their "advocacy day" at the Concord State House. You do not need to be a mother to participate. For information or to get involved in any way, email the NH volunteer team at newhampshire@moschapterleaders.org. The event starts at 9am. Once you contact event organizers, you will receive more information and specifics about where to meet.

We need to crowd the halls!

Janet L. Groat

Portsmouth

Perhaps photos of gun violence victims would open the public's eyes

April 16 — To the Editor:

Watching the movie “Till" about the kidnapping and murder of the 14-year-old Black youth Emmett Till was a reminder of how his mother Mamie Till bravely allowed his battered body to be viewed in an open casket and changed history. The horrors inflicted on this young man brought national attention to the practice of lynching and the disparity of justice for Blacks in the South and gave a major boost to the Civil Rights movement.

There have been several recent articles and op-eds about the mutilation caused by AR-15 style assault rifles used all too frequently by mass murderers.  The argument that these rifles are defensive weapons is ridiculous, and our political leaders have done nothing to ban these weapons, large capacity magazines and bump stocks.

Perhaps if photographs of the victims, especially the children, were published the damage these guns inflict would move from the abstract to the real.  Maybe then people would demand that something be done.

Allen Norelli

Portsmouth

Sununu is wrong; gun violence will never be the 'new normal'

April 15 — To the Editor:

Before leaving for Indiana to pay homage to the NRA and to reinforce his A rating from them, Gov. Chris Sununu made one of the most heartless and profoundly offensive statements regarding the epidemic of gun violence in America.  His statement, made after two deadly gun violence attacks in Tennessee and Kentucky, where 11 people including three children, were gunned down, and the Portsmouth schools were closed due to a threat from a man with an AR-15 and other weapons to “shoot up” the high school. Mr. Sununu stated that these threats represented “the new normal.”

There is nothing “new” or “normal” regarding the epidemic of gun violence in America, and anyone who claims that this ongoing scourge is “normal” or is “new” is detached from reality.  A 2021 report by Time Magazine reported that going back to 1982 there were 123 mass shooting incidents in which at least three people were killed, not including the gunman.  In that time, 952 people have been killed and 1,315 wounded.

Unfortunately, the only place on earth where an unchecked epidemic of gun violence could be considered “normal” would be in America, where the NRA controls our gun policy.  And in the face of this catastrophe the response we get from Republicans is to flock to the NRA convention to pledge their support to oppose any reasonable, sane and constitutionally based gun safety measures.

As a result of this political cowardice and paralysis, we will continue to see more killings of babies in schools and people in stores, banks and malls, simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And our governor calls this “normal.”

Rich DiPentima, LTC, USAFR, Ret.

Portsmouth

A mass ban on certain firearms will not solve the problem

April 13 — To The Editor:

Thank you Peter Peirce Rice for your letter to the editor.

What I find odd is that my longtime and dear friend Mr. Rice appears to know the context, intent, and tenor of the writer Capt. Kingston, which I find odd. How Jesus Christ and the gun violence problem in the USA are comparable still escapes any reasonable person but still Mr. Rice sees fit to attempt to join them by spouting that Jesus would have answered no to the question of owning a gun. Again, how absurd.

I do not support gun ownership for those not lawfully or constitutionally allowed to. I DO support tight gun control and even tighter and more intensive “people control." To stem any problems with this, we need legislation not the kind of dialogue that Capt. Kingston and Mr. Rice offer. I ask the two former Marines this, do they support the penal system? Do they support the courts exacting the kinds of consequences and punishments that the law provides to these violent and disturbed individuals who perpetrate these crimes against humanity? A mass ban will not stop the problem.

Mr. Rice cites that there 20 million weapons throughout the United States. How many of those are never involved in a crime? How many are lawfully owned and kept safe and used in a safe and accepted manner? His claims are meant to incite outrage and stir the pot. Objective approaches are not something either Mr. Rice or Capt. Kingston accept, only outrageous theories and claims.

Lastly, gun violence has no place in America nor does killing by drugs and alcohol. Can Mr. Rice at least acknowledge this, I hope so. And a special thanks to both Capt. Kingston and Mr. Rice for their military service. I salute you both and thank you as well.

T. Stephen McCarthy

Portsmouth

Writer tries to distract from the real problem: gun violence

April 13 — To the Editor:

T. Stephen McCarthy gets it — sort of. Stephen writes that he is “beyond upset and bothered” by the senseless killing.

Instead, he tries to distract us by writing that law breakers should be punished for illegal guns. Unfortunately, there are no illegal guns. Restrictions on gun ownership are now eliminated. The guns used in mass killings were purchased legally. And, contrary to what Stephen advocates, we already have an effective and well-established body of laws to control drunk driving and illegal drugs. What he avoids mentioning is that guns are now the greatest killer of young people.

Again, he attempts to distract us from the real problem: Gun Violence is a public health crisis and there are no laws to resolve this menace.

Bill Kingston

New Castle

Food for thought for National Poetry Month

April 13 — To the Editor:

Breathe, said the wind

How can I breathe at a time like this,

When the air is full of smoke of burning tires, burning lives?

Just breathe the wind insisted.

Easy for you to say, if the weight of injustice is not wrapped

around your throat,

Cutting off all air.

I need you to breathe

I need you to breathe

Don't tell me to be calm

When there are so many reasons to be angry,

So much cause for despair!

I did not say to be calm, said the wind,

I said to breathe.

We are going to need a lot of air

To make this hurricane TOGETHER.

( Rev. Lynn Ungar)

Lets not be apathetic.  We need to get out there and be the change we want to happen.

Carlo Nittoli

Dover

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Shooting threat at Portsmouth High should spur us to action: Letters