Thursday’s letters

It’s the guns

After every mass shooting, one thing is guaranteed. The gun-rights people will come out in full force with the usual defense ranging from this is not the time to talk gun control, it’s a mental illness issue, it’s from video games, it’s from a lack of family values or as recent letters stated, is just not a big deal, banning guns won’t work and of course, making it a political issue — bullets don’t care if you are a Democrat or a Republican) and when all else fails, scream the Second Amendment, the one about “a well-regulated militia.”

How is it possible for a teenager to buy an AR-15, two in fact, along with 1,600 rounds of ammo? The same type of rifle that has been used in half the mass shootings over the last 20 years. I could cite stats and figures about the number of deaths and the number of children killed not just with AR-15 but other semi-automatic rifles but I know will do no good. We have laws and rules on every aspect of our daily lives ranging from cars to flying to fishing to drinking alcohol but for something that can be used to kill other human beings we can’t even have simple steps like background checks or waiting period or a license, something.

Why are we the only country in the world with this problem? Why do we value guns more than human lives?

Benny Terry

Colorado Springs

Ban ‘assault weapons’

Just think about when you were in school. I grew up in a town like Uvalde where everybody knew everybody’s business. I remember that a teacher, principal, or vice principal patrolled the hallways to make sure that none of us kids were taking too long in the restrooms or trying to sneak out the doors.

I remember high school as being benign with fights taking place on the grounds outside of the building or the boys arranged after-school meetings. There were no guns involved!

This country had an “Assault Weapons Ban” for 10 years wherein the gun death rates went down 17%. Since the ban was not renewed in 2004, deaths from assault weapons have more than tripled.

Tripled, because now we have schools assaulted, grocery stores and nightclubs. Whoever the gunman hated was the focus.

We are the only democratic country in the world that does not have national health care, which would provide mental health treatment. We are the only democratic country in the world that allows the unfettered sale of firearms.

Why is that? How can an 18-year-old walk into a gun shop and purchase an AR-15? For what purpose? Certainly not hunting because anything that weapon hit would be destroyed. The only reason to purchase an AR-15 or any assault weapon is to do bodily harm to another human being.

Think about it, all of you adults. Your kids don’t want to go to school because of fear. Your parents dread going to large public places because of guns. And, you can’t depend on the “good guys with a gun.” Look at Uvalde … it took the police one hour to stop one 18-year-old boy with an AR-15.

Tina Routhier

Colorado Springs

If he hadn’t had a gun

This is in response to the letter by Floyd Stillings titled “Banning guns won’t work.” He states that “Banning guns and other types of weapons does nothing towards addressing the real causes” of mass shootings. I agree with him there. But banning guns, especially assault weapons, while not addressing the causes, does address the results. If the shooter in Uvalde, Texas, had not been able to access a weapon, his need for violence would not have cost so many lives.

Jane Broeckelman

Colorado Springs

Cops stood by

Why are so many questions being asked about guns, but not enough about the 19 law officers waiting outside while children were being gunned down? There is no good reason they didn’t storm the room. There were 19 officers. Regardless of what they thought was going on they should have stormed the room!! How many lives would have been saved? It’s so crazy that the news media are not questioning this more!!

Sue Gorden

Colorado Springs

Churches and crime

With events like Buffalo Tops and Robb Elementary on our minds, and school violence burgeoning in the Intermountain West, one might ask whether the LDS church and other faiths are doing enough on the issue.

Christianity has long preached the importance of a higher law for members but seems less interested in working to enforce even minimum standards for lawful order in the broader community.

Every Christian denomination is justifiably focused on easing the burdens of its members, given its early and sometimes continuing history of mistreatment. But what good is peace and salvation for one’s own tribe in the chapel, if one’s neighbors and their children suffer in unmitigated bullying and violence in other local sacred spaces like schools and marketplaces?

Staying out of pressing community matters like gun violence is taking the separation of church and state too far. It is clearly possible for good church members of all stripes to be a deciding force for enforcing lawful standards in the school and community as well.

Kimball Shinkoskey

Woody Cross, Utah