Regarding a letter about the National Rifle Association (“Believes NRA has been stigmatized,” March 29), the statement that the Parkland, Florida, students, and the amazing students all over this country, as well as in our own city, are “acting as agents for the anti-gun politicians and the lobbies they cater to” is simply not correct. It also is a very paranoid and mean-spirited statement.
These teens are acting on their own, and doing the work that the adults in this country are unable to do. They have started a movement that will finally make some real changes in this country.
I witnessed this firsthand in Washington, D.C., on March 24 along with 800,000 other people, up to about age 100. Thank God, for these remarkable young people, leading the way.
It is simplistic to assert, and in fact to complain, that this movement for gun law reform is all about the NRA. The NRA is only a small part of our national culture, a culture that is addicted to guns and to violence as a solution for any kind of conflict.
The message out there is: if you have a gun, I need a gun. And the larger version of that is: if you have a nuclear weapon, I need a nuclear weapon. If you have two, I need three. This kind of thinking escalates in a never-ending, murderous spiral. It will be the death of our planet as we know it, unless we cut into this equation now.
The underlying, driving force beneath all of our national, interconnected addictions — with guns, with opioid and other drug and substance abuse, and with a hunger for nuclear arms — is fear. And beneath that fear is a greater fear of being vulnerable. It comes out of a feeling of not being in control of our lives and our world, and needing to take control by being able to potentially shoot and kill anyone who gets in the way of our own personal safety. It is a form of and effort at desperate control.
Semiautomatic weapons are not necessary for anything, other than slaughtering and internally exploding anything in this way. Hunters can use other sorts of guns if they must hunt, or bows and arrows. Migratory birds and deer don’t need AR-15s to be shot and killed. There is no sport in that, just outright brutality and excessive carnage.
We can donate and volunteer for the campaigns of those who are intent on changing the gun laws in this country. This is not about taking away everyone’s guns. It’s about putting a limit on the whole situation.
We can vote out those individuals who are unwilling to make the changes we need in order to survive as a race on this planet.
One change begets other changes. And changes in the culture of violence can and must start now, by addressing the dysfunction in our country and in our culture with guns. The time to ask for change is over. Thoughts and prayers are definitely not enough.
We must demand changes now that will save all of our lives, and we must take direct action.
Meg Kelsey Wright
Northampton