Vote with your pocketbook

In our present situation, where public concerts, movies and, most impressively, our schools, are not safe from gun violence, perhaps it is time for citizens to join with our children and grandchildren in trying to cause change.

Our legislators, apparently, are not interested in doing anything which would endanger their supply of contributions from such sources as the NRA.

They also refuse to do anything that would cause the slightest inconvenience to a small number of their constituents, in the form of universal background checks, better mental health care, and banning weapons whose only purpose is to kill as many people as quickly as possible.

In short, they choose to put many of us at risk to protect the wishes of a few.

A very few business organizations have taken a courageous stand to do something to at least try to impact gun violence, by stopping the sale of assault-style weapons in their stores. They have done this, even though it may affect their bottom line, because it is the right thing to do.

What can the rest of us do?

I suggest we elect legislators who are willing to do something to protect us from gun violence in the future.

But for now, I suggest we vote for stores that are willing to protect our children and ourselves. For myself, I plan to not buy any products from stores that continue to sell assault-style weapons or any accessories for these weapons, and I encourage the rest of you to do the same.

Whether this action will have any effect on the stores or on gun violence, I really don’t know. But the time has come for all of us to do something.

Ron Wick

Coeur d’Alene