From: Dr. Robert L. Forste
Columbus
The National Rifle Association and our legislators, both state and federal, are contributing to the killing of our children. Continued and inexcusable inaction by Congress and our state legislators to reign in access to the weapons of mass destruction that are assault rifles and their accessories is abominable.
The horrors of the past months with multiple episodes of mass shooting of innocent victims by angry, deranged, unstable individuals with unfettered access to weapons designed exclusively for killing masses of people are being addressed by our representatives and the president with platitudes and insincere tropes about mental health, school security and community inattention to troubled souls, but often without addressing the common denominator of all these incidents: guns.
How can our society justify the fact that the states demand licensure of individuals who wish to wield to cut hair, to wire or plumb a house, or to heal the sick and injured, but have no requirement to train, supervise or license an individual who wishes to buy a weapon which was designed and developed solely to kill as many people as efficiently as possible, and has no other practical function?
The NRA, with the acquiescence of amoral, unthinking, greedy legislators whose hopes and loyalties lie with the NRA’s checkbooks, propose fewer and fewer restrictions on firearms, their accessories and their availability even as the body count of our children and their innocent and brave protectors mount. How can any thinking, feeling, caring official not want to rein in this terror being foisted upon us?
We soon have an opportunity to address directly this unconscionable circumstance. In May and November we have elections for state and federal representatives, and now is the time for those of us sickened by the mayhem and sorrow perpetrated by firearms to be heard. To those candidates who wrap themselves in the NRA flag of the Second Amendment, we must demand that they acknowledge the harm and sorrow created by these heinous acts of assault weapon terrorism. Courage, wisdom and common sense, traits that seem to have vanished or at least been out shouted in the political realm, must be demanded in our candidates and supported with our voices and our checkbooks.
