To the editor:
In the wake of the tragic mass shooting in Las Vegas, Republican after Republican sanctimoniously brayed that now was not the time to discuss any effort to control guns and gun violence and urged lawmakers not to make the issue a political one.
Apparently the National Rifle Association didn’t get the message.
In the mail a week after the slaughter I received a letter from the NRA. It opened with these lines:
“When someone hits you and attacks your freedom, you fight back. And right now, hundreds of gun-hating politicians, judges, and media elites are doing everything in their power to sabotage and destroy your freedoms.
“They’re attacking your freedoms in the courts. They’re attacking in cities and small towns all across America. They’re attacking in the states … the media … even in Congress.”
The letter went on to seek support for the NRA in its efforts to guarantee that every person has the right to pack weapons.
After all, every law-abiding person should have the constitutional right to build a personal arsenal in a hotel room and then rain terror on innocent people. And if just one person in that concert crowd had been armed with a bazooka or several people were carrying their own semiautomatic weapons, the madman in the hotel might have been stopped in his tracks. Sure, there might have been collateral damage (read that: other innocent lives might be lost); but isn’t that the price of freedom?
If now is not the time to seriously consider efforts to control gun violence, then there is never a time. And as to making the issue a political one, the NRA is doing a fine job at that.
Richard C. Gotshall
Franklin
