Tuesday January 1, 2013

It was sickening to hear NRA head Wayne La Pierre's hateful monologue Dec. 21. His "solution" to prevent a massacre like the one at Sandy Hook Elementary from happening again was absurd and totally failed to acknowledge the fact that if an armed policeman was in the first grade classroom with a gun in hand he would have been brutally murdered before he could have even pulled the trigger.

This caused me to investigate mass murders that have happened in America recently. From Jan. 8, 2011 to Dec. 14, 2012, there were 10 massacres, from Tucson, Arizona, to Newtown. Connecticut. There were 84 deaths and 94 non-fatal injuries. These horrific numbers don't include the Virginia Polytechnic University massacre on April 16, 2007 with 33 deaths and 25 non-fatal injuries. It also doesn't include the Columbine High School massacre on April 26, 1999 with 15 deaths and 24 non-fatal injuries.

I know responsible people who own guns but who also acknowledge that something must be done now to deal with irresponsible gun ownership. I only hope that we will take the politics out of this serious issue and not just tuck it away in the closet again once the mourning families are off the news. The mourning will always be in our hearts at some level even if we didn't personally know one of the victims.

I don't have to think about what could have happened. Everyone in America and many nations around the world saw the horror that happened. It would be

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such a shame if nothing is done now to address this problem. Now is the time. CHRISTINE HOPPUS

Lenox