After Texas school shooting, Inquirer readers respond

Yesterday, a gunman killed 19 children and two adults at an elementary school in Texas, and this morning, our inbox was flooded with reader reactions.

I am furious to listen once again to another shooting in a school with children and teachers killed, in a market with older people targeted, in a church with people praying, and in the streets with people walking around.

To hear Senator Murphy (D-Conn.) pleading with his colleagues on his knees to do something besides worrying about losing their NRA funding.

» READ MORE: Here’s what Pa. members of Congress have said about the Texas school shooting

These tragedies happen, it seems now, on a weekly basis. What’s next? It’s time for “nothing” to be next except for some form of gun control. Here’s my plan: You want my vote? What is your plan to control gun violence?

No plan? Go find a laborer’s job. It’s more honest work than you do now. — Ed Tomezsko, chancellor emeritus, Penn State, Brandywine

I don’t understand how the media continues to repeat the carnage of mass shootings over and over.

I don’t understand the daily shootings in our City of Brotherly Love.

I don’t understand our politicians who continue to go up against the gun lobbyists.

Unfortunately, I do personally understand my own personal grief because of guns. My daughter died from suicide, my brother-in-law was murdered, and several colleagues at Parkland High School were killed in a mass shooting.

Grief doesn’t go away. But guns should. — Toby Schwait, retired, educator, Philadelphia

» READ MORE: 75 people have been killed in U.S. school shootings since 2018

I am old enough to remember opposition to pornography depicting the brutal violation of children on First Amendment grounds. Once again, children pay the heaviest price by using the pretext of the Second Amendment to oppose any legislation addressing gun violence. It is nothing short of depraved.

I awoke yesterday morning to the news that three boys – two brothers, and their friend – were gunned down while walking home from school in Philadelphia. I tried to go to sleep last night with the news that 19 children and their teacher were gunned down in their classroom in Texas.

This November, if you are inclined to ask candidates their views on Critical Race Theory, be sure and ask them their views on the Second Amendment. —Rebecca Craven Greenhow, West Chester

The reason why politicians are unable to stop school shootings is that they lack the will. They lack the will because their own children are never in danger from such shootings, being enrolled in private schools far away from the dangers that ordinary children such as our own must live with. This is another example of an increasing bifurcation of American society caused by wealth and privilege: safety at the top, anxiety and pain below. —Christopher Horrocks, Philadelphia

» READ MORE: Gov. Phil Murphy ups police presence at New Jersey schools after Texas mass shooting kills 19 children, 2 adults

Another day and another senseless mass shooting of unsuspecting, innocent people. Isn’t it time that Congress faces the fact that our Constitution is not a perfect document and begins to talk about revising and updating the Second Amendment – the right (as part of a “well-regulated militia”) to bear arms? The many shooters of children, church-goers, food shoppers, and more are not such a well-regulated militia. They are disturbed, misguided hate-mongers and racists who use a misinterpretation of the Constitution to arm themselves and slaughter innocent children and unsuspecting citizens who are going about ordinary, everyday activities. We have amended the Constitution before. There must be a way to rephrase the Second Amendment to allow peaceful, law-abiding gun owners to keep their weapons while making it more difficult for unstable, dangerous people to acquire weapons of mass assassination. Congress! Put aside your partisan politics and do your job! Protect our citizens, now. —James Seyboldt, Warminster

Any American with sense who isn’t outraged by yet another mass murder of children in a Texas elementary school does not deserve the title “citizen.” The failure to control guns in America is a monumental failure of leadership at every level of government, corporate, and civil society. All contribute to gridlock, no one escapes responsibility.

Wake up, people. We’re killing each other at an unimaginable pace unmatched by any other country on the globe. Something can and must be done. The best approach was articulated by Nicholas Kristoff in an article published in the NY Times in 2017, which proposes auto safety as a template for how we should regulate guns. That regulates, not bans. Guns must be regulated like cars (seat belts, Fed. safety standards, speed limits, child safety seats, mandatory airbags, and mandatory reporting of defects).

For guns, require background checks, ban purchases under 21, require safe storage, ban straw purchases, require background checks for the purchase of ammo, end impunity for firearm manufacturers, ban bump stocks, develop and require smart guns, which can’t be fired without the fingerprint, pin, or bracelet of the owner.

I’m disgusted, how about you? Demand action. —Angelo Sgro, Philadelphia, agsgro@comcast.net

Once again our country faces another incident where children and educators have been senselessly murdered by another madman. Schools, which should be a place of comfort and safety, have now become a place of fear, where children as young as five or six are taught “active shooter drills.” And an ever-increasing number of schools are forced to install metal detectors and hire security guards.

So far this year, there have been 27 separate K-12 school shootings resulting in injury or death. In the entire year of 2021, there were 34. It is a fact that gun violence is the number one cause of death of teens and children in our country. Yet, the standard reaction from the usual suspects in the Republican Party like Senator Ted Cruz is:

“When there’s a murder of this kind, you see politicians try to politicize it. You see Democrats and a lot of folks in the media whose immediate solution is to try to restrict the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens.” But what of the Constitutional rights of the murdered children and teachers? What of their right to “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?” In the mind of the Senator, the rights of these children and teachers are secondary to those of the NRA and gun owners.

Instead of addressing the problem, Senator Cruz suggests turning our schools into armed camps: “We know from past experience that the most effective tool for keeping kids safe is armed law enforcement on the campus.”

The fact is that our President and the Democrats have every right to “politicize” the shootings. It becomes a political issue when the members of Congress from the Republican Party are willing to do the bidding of their corporate donors and prevent the passage of reasonable gun control while children continue to die.

That’s “political!” —Michael A. Gottesman, attorney (retired), Wayne