Readers React: Why Hillary Clinton (and everyone else) should be ‘shouting’ about gun violence

To the editor: I’d like to raise my voice to assert that Meghan Daum is disingenuous and unfair when she criticizes former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s tone of voice but gives chronic shouter Bernie Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont, a pass. (“Sanders and Clinton: What’s all the shouting about?,” Op-Ed, Oct. 29)

Daum ignores what is going on when Sanders repeats his slogan about “shouting” and gun safety. (Hint: It means he won’t address his record on this issue and instead wants to deflect attention to those who criticize it). More than 30,000 gun deaths a year is something to yell about.

But what really bugs me is that Daum pretends not to remember how women are denigrated for behavior that is celebrated in their male counterparts. Lighten up, Daum advises Clinton. Laugh. Make nice. Shush up.

The only purpose of advice like this — whether from Sanders or Daum — is to silence, to denigrate and to marginalize women.

Jo Perry, Studio City

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To the editor: There are issues that scream out to be shouted about, and guns is one of them. Clinton, or anyone else who believes in diminishing gun violence, should shout from the rafters until something is finally done.

That brings me to Sanders, whom Daum uses as her starting point as well as an example of someone who also shouts all the time. To make her point that Clinton is unfairly accusing her competitor of sexism, Daum likens Sanders’ volume to “trying to order a bagel with a schmear in a cacophonous New York deli,” and then denies that such a remark would be anti-Semitic.

Well, I beg to differ. It is not perhaps viciously so, but because loudness is often pejoratively attributed to Jews, to reference a New York deli (and a cacophonous one at that) plays on that stereotype.

Since Sanders is indeed Jewish, why choose the New York deli simile in particular?

Ona Russell, Solana Beach, Calif.

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