I’ve written numerous letters to your newspaper, but none as important as this one.

As we all know, there have been more deaths in the United States in the hands of an adolescent with an AR-15-style assault rifle. Is there any reason for anyone 18 (or older) to have one of these weapons of mass destruction?

Their answer is: “I’m 18 and it’s my right to have one of these weapons.”

The Second Amendment ensures the right to bear arms, but not to kill the innocent as we keep seeing in the United States.

My heart aches every time I see on the news a parent broken-hearted learning of the death of their child.

The doctors say it’s hard to identify the children because of the damage the AR-15s produce.

In the U.S. capital, near the Washington Monument, there are 45,000 memorials with white and orange flowers commemorating the lives of those killed by gun violence in the U.S. in just one year.

How many were killed with an AR-15? We don’t have those numbers, but we have the numbers of those killed during a 12-month period.

Has life become so unimportant that we just go on and on without the necessary changes that would prevent so many lost lives?

Some of those changes could have prevented children and teachers at Uvalde, Texas, from being gunned down by an 18-year-old with little thought for the lives he was taking on that disastrous day.

An AR-15, with its rapid-fire capability, is not a rifle any hunter needs to bring down their game.

Using a rifle with that much power leaves little meat on any game the hunter plans on feeding their families. Does it make any sense for anyone to own or use a weapon used by the military during a time of war?

In 1907, Winchester produced and sold the first multi-shot weapon to citizens, yet at that time the military were being given single-shot rifles.

In the U.S., 91 per cent of the citizens are reported to be wanting drastic changes made to the gun laws, yet the politicians are deaf to what the voters are telling them.

What does it have to take for those voted into power to hear and respond to the changes that must take place?

Do greed and the desire to be elected into power supersede the protection of the lives of those who will vote for these politicians?

Republican voters will continue to vote for the party even after elected members vote against changes in gun laws – changes party supporters wanted their elected members to make.

Will they vote for those members again in two years? What do you think?

Tom Thornton

NOTL