Readers React: Charleston shooting: Readers aim their outrage at the NRA

The Times’ letter writers have had enough.

In response to the shooting Wednesday in Charleston, S.C., that left nine people attending a prayer meeting dead, there have been no calls from readers for the police investigation to run its course before jumping to conclusions, no pleading for calm, no cautioning against pointing fingers. Only a few readers have addressed racism as a motive of the gunman.

What readers have expressed is outrage; many take aim at the National Rifle Assn. After a string of mass shootings over the last several years, there’s a sense among our letter writers of hopelessness that the violence will ever end.

Glendale resident Joe Bonino singles out the NRA:

Enough is enough! When is this country going to find within itself enough gumption to stand up to the NRA’s influence, which has turned the United States into the most violent, homicidal country in the developed world?

And when is this country going to come to grips with the fact that we have a Supreme Court that has wildly misconstrued the 2nd Amendment to aid and abet the NRA’s greedy mischief?

I was raised in the 1950s, when as kids we were taught to “duck and cover” in the vain attempt to survive a nuclear attack. How ironic that we now really have to look over our shoulders and duck and cover in schools, theaters and churches lest we get blown away by some gun-toting crazy person.

Carlie Harris of Harbor City addresses President Obama:

Mr. President, you said you are tired of making comments after a massacre such as the violence in Charleston. My advice is for you to draft a permanent commentary, where you only have to change the locale, that can be used over and over again.

In our ugly gun culture, the NRA has far too many of our politicians in its pockets. It is only a matter of time that the nation will experience this ugliness again.

Bob Guarrera of Laguna Niguel tells Democrats to look in the mirror:

In a letter published Friday, one reader blames the Republican Party for nurturing the “seeds of the lock and load society” created by the NRA.

Democrats, who had control of the White House and Congress for two years, could have done something if they wanted to. They did nothing.

Ventura resident Mary Foster scolds the media:

It’s high time this country made strict laws against the media sensationalizing and bringing widespread attention to these heinous mass murderers, who are drawn to acting on their twisted visions in part because they are assured instant fame and a nationwide forum for their utterly hateful and often racist views.

Certainly readers clamor for information, and The Times’ Friday paper carried two front-page stories on the church massacre. But laws could protect the public from itself and save many innocent lives in the process.

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