Hope surrendered

Again in the Jan. 21 letters to the editor I read impassioned defenses for a broad interpretation of Second Amendment rights. To be clear, I do not own a gun. I have family and friends who do, though, and I trust all of them to be responsible. In all cases, the guns are/were used for hunting.

Curiously, in none of these letters do I read any sort of solution or movement to address the gun violence that plagues us. So many insist on the status quo, seeing any slight change as a signal for the jack-booted thugs to bust down our doors and seize our weapons (this from the same writers routinely bemoaning government’s utter incompetence. So, suddenly, government gets good at something?).

Even my responsible friends shrug their shoulders, offering only, “What can you do?” This is to continue to offer up our children as sacrifice on this altar. It says to the victims in Newtown and elsewhere that more names must be added to theirs, and we are powerless against it. All for the freedom to own high-powered assault rifles of no use to hunters and in the someday militia that will magically spring into existence, no doubt well-regulated.

Scott Cooper

Spokane