FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM FEBRUARY 22, 2018 • THE QUEENS COURIER 39
Hold pols accountable for gun violence
Th ere are no words to express the horror
and shock over the killings and injuries
sustained by those at the Parkland,
FL, high school on Valentine’s Day.
Wonderful people, most of them children,
were victims of this act of terror.
Th is is not the fi rst time that such carnage
has taken place. Th ere seems to be
no end in sight. Many school districts are
now conducting student drills of what
to do and where to go should a shooter
invade school grounds. Students and parents
live in fear. Th is is America?
Aft er a tragedy, there follows a loud
public outcry for steps to be taken to stop
these heinous acts. Unfortunately, the
powerful gun lobby in our country, who
contributes large amounts of money to
certain candidates for elected offi ce, manages
to derail any proposed commonsense
gun safety measures. Many politicians
fear for their jobs because of the
power and money represented by the gun
lobby.
In the 2016 election cycle, the National
Rifl e Association (NRA) contributed $54
million to candidates for public offi ce that
supported their views, including over $30
million to President Trump. Do you think
that these particular offi cials are going to
buck the NRA in any meaningful way?
In the 2018 election cycle, the issue
of how to prevent future episodes of
gun violence will be a crucial issue for
Americans to consider. Th e media must
continue to keep this issue front and center
and not allow it to fade until another
tragedy occurs.
Our elected offi cials, as well as new candidates
for offi ce, must be held accountable.
It is time to vote against those politicians
who are dragging their feet and not
supporting commonsense solutions to
this most serious national problem.
Henry Euler, Bayside
A PERFECT STORM OF
GOVERNMENT FAILURE
Aft er still another senseless tragedy at
a public school, this time in Parkland,
Florida, we have to start thinking of these
calamities as a perfect storm of a legislative
failure to act, the Supreme Court getting
it wrong and a reluctance of the two
political parties to go against a very eff ective
lobbying eff ort by the NRA. Th ere is
multiple blame.
First off , the U.S. Supreme Court has
interpreted the Second Amendment to
the Constitution as being an individual’s
right to bear arms, not a response to the
British’s confi scation of weapons, prior to
the War for Independence. Th e Supreme
Court has ruled that individual states can
regulate “reasonable” gun control, leaving
it up to each state to decide what is
reasonable.
Second, this is not a lack of will, for gun
control or reasonable background checks,
on simply the current party in power, but
of both parties. Lest we forget, from 2009-
2010, the Democratic Party had their candidate
in the White House as well as controlled
both houses of Congress. No
gun control initiatives were started
then, nor was there any legislation to
strengthen the background check system,
nor was there a reauthorization of the
Assault Weapon Ban.
While this spate of multiple-person
shootings have gone on, there is still no
consensus, in either party, as to what to
do to stop them.
Frankly, we need a leader and I don’t
care which party produces it: a person
to take the initiative and call to task both
parties for their lack of dealing with this
deadly problem.
S.M. Sobelsohn, Kew Gardens
THE ‘GUNSHINE’ STATE &
DEFUNDING GUN MAKERS
It’s no coincidence that the latest school
shooting occurred in Florida, a fi rearms
friendly NRA fi efdom sometimes
called the “Gun-Shine State.” Where else
could a troubled, gun-obsessed teenager,
expelled from high school for attacking
another student, buy an AR-15 assault
rifl e as easily as he could buy a six-pack
of beer?
Th e AR-15 is a killing machine. It’s a
civilian version of the military’s M-16
rifl e that I fi red while serving in the Air
Force (1964-68). It’s a combat weapon
that should not be owned by civilians, but
is thanks to the NRA (Not Reasonable
Anytime). Adam Lanza slaughtered 26
people at Newtown, CT, in 2012 with an
AR-15 Bushmaster.
Th e maker of that weapon, Remington
Outdoors, recently fi led for bankruptcy.
You can help put other merchants of mass
murder on the same path by demanding
that pension funds, college endowments
and other institutional investors sell their
stocks in fi rearms manufacturers. Don’t
turn dollars into death.
No one should profi t from blood
money.
Richard Reif, Kew Gardens Hills
Editor’s note: It’s been reported that
while an 18-year-old can purchase a fi rearm
in Florida, one must be 21 years of age
or older to buy an alcoholic beverage there.
WHY BOTHER WITH
LAWS? THEY DON’T WORK
Unfortunately, the murdering of school
children has become the standard way
that an insane person can get his moment
of fame, but what can society or the governments
do to stop it?
In grief and frustration the relatives
cry out for the government to do something
and the only thing that government
can do is pass a law, but how eff ective
are laws? Isn’t there a law against killing
already?
Laws are a warning to bad people that
if they get caught, they will pay a price for
their evil deeds, but bad people are just
bad or they are nuts. Th e bad don’t care
about the law and the nuts are incapable
of fearing a law. Th e cities with the strictest
gun laws have the most gun violence
in the country, proving that gun laws are
ineff ective.
When a bad person wants to commit
a crime, they get guns outside of the law.
Th e only people that follow the law are
the good people and they would not commit
a crime anyway.
John Procida, Flushing
Editor’s note: Laws are not warnings.
Th ey are rules designed to regulate behavior
and establish order out of chaos. For
thousands of years, civilizations have created
laws as codes of conduct — and for
thousands of years, people in every civilization
have broken laws. Th at, of course, has
not stopped civilizations from creating and
enforcing laws through the ages.
Email your letters to editorial@qns.com
(Subject: Letter to the Editor) or leave a
comment to any of our stories at QNS.
com. You can also send a letter by regular
mail to Letters to the Editor, 38-15
Bell Blvd., Bayside, NY 11361. All letters
are subject to editing. Names will be
withheld upon request, but anonymous
letters will not be considered for publication.
Th e views expressed in all letters and
comments are not necessarily those of this
publication or its staff .
letters & comments
March for Our Lives next month
Th e March for Our Lives takes place nationwide on Saturday, March 24. Children
and familieмs will take to the streets to call on the federal government to act new gun
regulations that will prevent mass shootings and save lives.
Visit marchforourlives.com to fi nd more information about local events, or to
donate to the eff ort. One hundred percent of all donations will go toward fund-raising
activities.
Contact the President
Along with writing your local Member of Congress and New York’s senators, we
encourage you to also contact the President of the United States (and not through
Twitter, either). We must inform him that we care about our nation’s safety and
want him to support tougher gun laws to prevent future massacres in America.
Send a letter to the president, Th e White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.,
Washington, DC 20500. You can also leave a message at whitehouse.gov/contact or
call the switchboard at 202-456-1111.