Letter: Gun deaths unabated

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Long guns, short guns, middle-sized guns. Thirty thousand gun deaths a year. While Robert Reno, Matthew Perry, Bill Chase (Monitor letters, Jan. 23) spend their time calling the president and the government hypocritical, asserting the right of self-defense, and splitting hairs about which-sized gun was used for Sandy Hook (Okay, so what about Aurora?), in the meantime more gun deaths keep occurring at the normal – abnormal – U.S. annual rate.

Look in the mirror, guys: This country is an embarrassment to itself internationally, and it’s past time to do something. I’m in full agreement with John Buttrick, Robert Stein (Monitor letters, Jan. 21), and others who have written in favor of taking action now, and dithering no more to the dictates of the National Rifle Association’s exaggerated, profit-driven paranoia.

And I agree with New Hampshire’s own David Souter, as well as others, in pointing out that the “militia” phrase would not have been in the Second Amendment had it not been intended to modify the “right to bear arms.”

For example, try the grammar of this: “A decrease in the abuse of the cold remedy Sudafed being necessary to the safety of the population, the right of pharmacies to require identification and to keep a record of purchases of pseudoephedrine has now been mandated.” I didn’t notice a lot of protest against drug regulation in 2005, and guns kill a lot more people than methamphetamines. Yet I can still have easy access to cold remedies.

I hope all those in support of the president’s initiatives will write their congresswomen and say so.

CHIP MORGAN

Alexandria