Dear Editor,

We’ve recently had three mass killings where the shooters had impressive fire power. In the Texas church, 26 were killed, 20 wounded and almost 500 shots fired. In Las Vegas, 58 were killed, 546 injured and more than 1,100 shots fired. In Colorado, one policeman was killed, six people wounded and about 100 shots fired. We know the first two had “large-capacity magazines” (those holding 10 to 100 shots) and can guess that the Colorado shooter probably had them as well. The Las Vegas shooter also had “bump stocks” that allowed machine gun-like bursts from his semi-automatic rifles. Both bump stocks and large-capacity magazines can be purchased online. You need 30 or 40 shots for self-defense? Really?

These shootings were done by sick people with access to weapons modified to kill people. That access has been made more likely by actions the NRA has taken.

No one measure will stop gun violence, but several common-sense actions could begin to reduce it: improved, universal background checks; closing loopholes in current laws; outlawing high-capacity magazines and full automatics and improved mental health treatment. None of these would infringe “on the right of the people to keep and bear arms” or lead to the gun confiscations the NRA constantly warns us about.

As with any letter that criticizes the NRA, we can now look forward to rebuttal letters containing personal attacks and quotes of NRA-supplied data that show where I’m wrong.

Ken Thacker
Sagle