FEEDBACK:   Three letters on guns and violence

Watch out for the red meat on guns

To the editor:

Thank you for this paragraph in your article on gun control, “But don’t be fooled that banning bump stocks, which isn’t being completely pooh-poohed by the NRA, is real gun control. It’s a temporary concession to quell debate on bigger issues of real gun control. It’s part of the political game in Washington that assumes if you throw a little red meat to the voters, they won’t look at doing something more substantive and with more scope.”

I have been saying the exact same thing since the proposal to ban bump stocks was mentioned. And we all know why the NRA is not objecting. They know how horrific the Las Vegas shooting was and as you say, “a little red meat” will appease the voters. I hope not.

— Katharine DuV. Beard, Camden, S.C.

No easy solution to gun violence

To the editor:

I agree that a sensible solution to the free availability of guns has to be found. I wonder if all the data from years of mass killings could be compiled and studied to find what specifically could have been done to have prevented them. What would the words of a law governing the ownership or sale of guns say that would directly impede such tragedies?

Frankly, I think that camel is in the tent. If the sale of guns were to stop right now, there are enough of them out there to stock a lucrative underground market. I think, perhaps, the larger issue lies in the realm of mental health: personal mental health and national mental health. I’m sure the ‘state’ could develop a mental health template that would key on certain traits or behaviors common to mass murderers and keep them under strict surveillance.

This, of course, is the stuff of science fiction movies and its implementation would completely discard many constitutional protections. This is a convoluted way of saying there are no easy solutions.

— Ben Moise, Charleston, S.C.

Second Amendment about white fear, money

To the editor:

The shooter [in Las Vegas] was just an ordinary man.   I can go into a gun store and as long as I don’t have a documented criminal record, I can buy an assault rifle with a magazine capacity of 30, 45 or even 100 rounds. A weapon designed ONLY for targeting people, in large numbers. And nobody knows my mindset, or just what exactly I intend to do with that assault rifle, or several assault rifles.

Many of my friends have quit the NRA a long time ago when it became obvious they were pure shills for any kind of weapon, munitions, silencers, armor-piercing bullets. Really, who outside of law enforcement should have those? For one man’s supposed right to bear arms (let’s forget about the accompanying bit about context of well-regulated militia) almost 600 people and their families have been devastated. Lowering the flag to half-staff and having yet another moment of silence is absolutely obscene when we know, with certainty, that some other undiagnosed psycho armed to the teeth is probably already wondering how he can claim the mantle of the worst mass shooting. And yet Congress, specifically the GOP, does nothing to head it off. It’s unconscionable.

The Second Amendment is a farce, a white-only privilege. When blacks are executed by the police in open-carry states for legally possessing guns, the psycho killers at the NRA say nothing. The Second Amendment is not about gun rights.  It’s about white fear and money. In a moment of such jarring tragedy, two sad, but indisputable realities of America 2017 were exposed — and then amplified — within minutes of the shooting:

1. Our gun manufacturers are heavily incentivized by market demand and lax laws in most states, and by the federal government, to allow mad men to accumulate all the firepower they crave for mass killings. This didn’t change after Columbine, Sandy Hook or the many other mass shootings.
2. President Trump and congressional Republicans have every incentive to protect the status quo and they will until they are kicked out of office.

— George Wilson, Stone Mountain, Ga.

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