Shootout at Santa Monica Pier

Re “Police Link Suspects in Pier Shootout to 3 Killings,” July 6:

Alleged gunmen brazenly open fire and take hostages at the Santa Monica Pier. Five people are shot but not killed. Fifteen people are held hostage and released after a five-hour standoff. Jan Palchikoff, head of the Santa Monica Pier Restoration Corp., stated, “While it was tragic . . . in the grand scheme of things it was minor.” Excuse me?

Perhaps the most chilling reminder will be the photograph of a child “playing a shooting game” after the pier reopened.

Suggested as an NRA anthem (to the tune of “The Star Spangled Banner”): “And the guns were all there, a child’s terrified stare, gave proof through the night, that our right to kill was still there.” Happy Fourth of July in the land of the free (to bear arms) and home of the brazen.

JOAN WAGNER

Long Beach

* Lori Shepler’s picture partially answers the question of why so many of us now can pull a trigger on another human being. During the Second World War only 15% of troops in the Pacific would engage the enemy. A change in training techniques to the action, reaction, reward process reversed this for troops in Vietnam. With proper training 85% would engage another human.

Toy guns alone don’t automatically make killers, as most troops prior to the Second World War probably played with them as kids. The type of training the child in the picture is receiving simply removes the inhibition against shooting at another human.

LAWRENCE SMITH

Rowland Heights