We all are to blame
Every one of us owns some guilt of the slaughter of innocents at
Sandy Hook Elementary because we have not taken up the challenge to stop
violence as a form of entertainment.
Movies, music and video
games have made killing fun and entertaining. Especially video games,
where many people spend hours on end killing everything that moves on a
screen, desensitizing themselves to killing and seeing blood and guts.
I
can’t help but think that because video games are getting more and more
violent and realistic, some will blur the line between reality and
gaming. Some of us can manage it; others clearly can’t. We don’t really
know what hours of killing in video games can train a mixed-up mind to
do.
You’d think Columbine and other massacres would have been
eye-openers. But no, we close our eyes, turn our heads and get on with
our lives instead of doing something about it.
Stop the violence.
Cindy Dueringer
Lenexa
Guns, tragic Christmas
Twenty-six
people killed; 20 are children. Even though it has nothing to do with
honest hunters, it makes for an absolutely horrible Christmas.
The National Rifle Association and our gutless politicians sadly have showered us with these grotesque “gifts” for years.
Verne Christensen
Olathe
Sensible laws
If
all of us who are mothers of schoolchildren banded together, we would
be stronger than the National Rifle Association and would be able to get
some sensible gun laws enacted.
Write a letter today to your congressperson.
Let’s stop this madness. No one needs military-type assault weapons to protect his family.
Julie Whitley
Olathe
Guns protect children
Here
we go again with the liberals grasping another opportunity to scream
from the rooftops, “Guns must go.” Did you ever hear of anything so
stupid?
Legal or illegal, people will defend themselves. Did they
ever think that schools are a target because they don’t shoot back?
Even a rent-a-cop would make one think twice when he sees the uniform
and sidearm.
Our government protects politicians. Why not schoolchildren?
Don Airington
Kansas City
Time for a change
I am 62 years old.
I own many guns.
I am a member of the NRA.
I am retired military.
I am a Republican.
I am a sportsman.
I vote.
I have had enough of gun violence.
It is time for a change.
I
also have a suggested first step: that high-capacity magazines be made
illegal, that it be a felony to own one. That way, if a person decides
he wants to own a high-capacity magazine he risks his right to own a gun
(felons cannot own guns).
The previous ban on high-capacity magazines was a joke, easily skirted and resulting in a loss of respect for the law.
This is not the answer, but this would be a start that signals the resolve of our leadership to make a change.
I
have talked to my friends (all multiple-gun owners), and they also
believe it is time to act. One of them suggested a federal buy-back
program for high-capacity magazines.
Democracy without discipline is chaos.
Kerry Grigsby
Overland Park
Mental health solution
Let’s
not pin all the blame for the Sandy Hook school massacre solely on gun
ownership. When President Barack Obama said “meaningful action” was
needed, he didn’t say it was gun control. I believe he was hoping for
creative solutions, not the same old shibboleths.
But the anti-gun folks are using his call to action to bolster their case for the elimination of guns.
The
mental health services system is also at fault. The nation must find a
way to remove psychotic people who are a danger to themselves and others
from society before they act out their deadly goals. Simply denying
mentally ill people guns won’t work. That train has already left the
station.
There are far too many guns too easily obtainable
despite whatever government controls can be applied. Rather, the removal
of dangerous psychotics from society should be our goal, despite our
well-intentioned desires to protect their individual liberties. That
tactic has produced a homeless problem of dysfunctional people on the
streets.
Let’s open our eyes to the fact that mentally ill
potential shooters need to be pre-empted before they wreak their evil
carnage on the defenseless.
David Warren
Leawood
Faith’s answer
Concerning
the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy, all of the major networks are
asking guest ministers from different faith backgrounds, “Where is God
in all of this?” Their answers always revolve around free will and our
choice to do good or evil.
However, long ago, I was taught by the
Jesuits that the mind of God is “unfathomable.” The first minister who
will answer the question about God’s presence by simply saying, “I don’t
know” will gain my complete respect. I’m tired of all the bloviating.
Thomas J. Moran
Belton
Gun violence control
In
the aftermath of the Newtown school massacre, the letters and
commentators rise up again, focusing on gun control and the NRA.
It seems that I have never known the NRA to advocate for gun violence.
But I do recall a lot of guns being used against humans on TV, in the
movies and video games.
Who do you think puts more screwed-up ideas in crazy people’s heads, the NRA or the entertainment industry?
Terry Yake
Overland Park
Justice system woes
The
lunatic fringe against the Second Amendment, including but not limited
to the U.S. president, a U.S. senator, Boston and New York mayors, and
lib-media types such as an editor and columnist of The Kansas City Star,
are now railing for more gun control laws and restrictions.
I
suggest they wake up and seriously consider reported facts about the
named shooter in Newtown, Conn., Adam Lanza was a criminal — a thief and
murderer and most likely a trespasser before even starting the carnage
at the school.
This 20-year-old stole his mother’s weapons and slew her.
Yet
cries for more controls aimed at denying law-abiding Americans their
constitutional rights grow more shrill by the minute. If laws meant
something to criminals, they would not continually violate them.
I submit that laxness of the so-called justice system is a huge contributor to the growing criminal element among us.
For example, sentencing murderers and rapists proved guilty by DNA and
other incontrovertible evidence to wrist slaps of prison time instead of
execution lets them know they can wreak havoc on others and, if caught,
be given medical care and room-and-board at taxpayer expense.
Capital punishment would certainly reduce recidivism.
Gary Lair
Odessa
A new town
We see the red lights, the ambulance glow
And we fight over who or what is to blame
And still we enable and refuse to let go
Reacting with rage and then acting the same
We play with the words like little tin soldiers
Set them up here and knock them down there
And wonder why hearts seem to grow ever colder
When the heat that we speak is just so much air
For children become what we teach them to be
They only reflect and learn what we shine
And to curse that reflection is hypocrisy
If we have just tied our hate to their time
We must seek in ourselves and try to remember
And teach what we know is right and is true
And pray that one day, in our own December
The children we love will remember it too.
Colin Gage
Kansas City
Woman’s perspective
What do mass shooters and the U.S. Congress have in common?
They are mostly males, and mostly white.
Since
there are slightly more women (50.8 percent) in the U.S. than men,
perhaps it is time that our governing bodies reflected that majority and
we had a majority of women in both chambers.
Perhaps they would bring a different perspective to discussions of firearms than men have done.
And with a majority we might be able to accomplish something.
Janice Grebe
Roeland Park
Shooting children
Guns don’t kill people, gun owners do.
I do not give a darn about your right to own guns, I care about my family’s freedom to live safely in public.
Martha Liston
Kansas City
Roberta Carter
Co-Founder of RYC- Hattiesburg and Founder of Talk Nutrition
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