In his Jan. 24 op-ed, “We already know how to prevent mass killings,” Eugene Robinson briefly touched on the Second Amendment. But the only solution to gun violence is to repeal the Second Amendment and make gun ownership a regulated privilege, not a right.
I say poppycock. Granted, an actual repeal would be hard, a moon shot, and possibly cost some incumbents reelection or overflow the comments on an op-ed. I have arguments in favor of repeal but only a very small voice. There are smarter, more learned, better positioned people who need to start the conversation. Politicians and pundits need to address that guns are a result; the Second Amendment is the problem.
Richard LaCourse, Laurel
The Jan. 25 editorial “No quick fixes” pointed out that however numerous and varied the attempts to control the misuses of firearms have been, they are all, in sum, failures.
Restrictions on the features and capabilities of the guns themselves, the ages of their users and, notably, feeble efforts to identify those having a potential to inflict harm, have all been unsuccessful. The validity of the late British prime minister Winston Churchill’s reported observation that “you can always count on the Americans to do the right thing after they have tried everything else” has long been confirmed by these bloody outrages taking place nearly every day.
It is time to grasp the nettle, to say plainly that the source of the problem is the Second Amendment and either set in motion its outright repeal or revise it to bring it into line with the understanding that prevailed until quite recently: that its prescriptions applied to that “well regulated militia” of its preamble. This would make the road long and rocky, but until it is done, the assaults on our public safety and domestic tranquility will inevitably continue.
Malcolm D. Keen, Fairfax Station
As stated in the “no quick fixes” editorial, what we have learned from these recent shootings is that gun violence does not fit into a particular mold and knows no boundaries. We need uniform and comprehensive national measures and laws for all states to solve the cross-border gun violations and other varied gun restrictions. Essential to these measures should be a ban on assault weapons (with no expiration date, please) and high-capacity magazines.
We should get to a place where we have more people than guns in this country, which could lead to safer communities for our children and generations to come.
Karen Higa, Falls Church
The greatest responsibility for the ongoing shootings lies with Congress, which, despite the spate of horrific gun-related murders, right up to the recent killings in California, has not passed significant gun control laws that would ban the sale of assault weapons and institute universal background checks for anyone wishing to purchase a gun. The United States has many more guns than people, and every time there is a mass gun-related killing, we rush out to buy more guns, thinking that our elected representatives will take meaningful action. They don’t, and unless and until they do, many more Americans will needlessly die.
Henry A. Lowenstein, New York