EXTRA LETTERS: Readers react to Newtown shooting

<p class="bold allcaps">Waiting for action</p> <p>EDITOR: Are we a nation of cowards, bullied by the National Rifle Association and the gun lobby? When are we going to rise up and demand laws banning assault rifles? I defy any responsible gun owner to look in the eyes of a parent whose child has been murdered in this manner and say that he or she feels the law is adequate the way it is.</p><p>Will our politicians get some backbone, get out of the pockets of the pro-gun crowd and enact some responsible legislation in the face of this latest tragedy? We watch and wait.</p><p>CHARLIE MAIER</p><p><i>Sebastopol</i></p><h3>Finding a solution</h3> <p>EDITOR: Another horrible act of violence. Next comes the caterwauling of gun-control aficionados, then the pronouncements of rights by the gun-control opponents. Finally .<TH>.<TH>. nothing will happen, except more violence.</p><p>Our society is inundated by intolerance, revenge and violence. Television, movies, computer games; it's the fast-draw, vengeful, emotionless, take-no-prisoners warriors who are our heroes. It's little wonder the disenfranchised pick up a gun.</p><p>There is a regulation in America that an advertiser cannot show a person drinking whiskey. Why? Because the suggestion of drinking may lead some to abuse. Why not the same prohibitions on showcasing violence? The entertainment lobby, with its prostituted lawmakers, makes a mockery of free speech. Our forefathers gave us the First Amendment to speak our mind against the government. They must be turning in their graves to see how the courts have besmirched that right with their pandering to entertainment payoffs.</p><p>Now many will vilify the National Rifle Association protecting the Second Amendment. If the gun-control folks would give up their passion for banning guns and work to control widespread violence, would the NRA use its vast member and dollar resources to promote anti-violence?</p><p>STEVE SARSFIELD</p><p><i>Sebastopol</i></p><h3>Just double-talk</h3> <p>EDITOR: Just when I thought the news couldn't get worse, Mike Huckabee appeared on Fox to suggest that the Connecticut school shootings occurred because “we don't let God into our public schools.” If I thought Huckabee really believed that nonsense, I'd wonder what kind of monster his god must be, but it's just his way of standing up for the Second Amendment. If we have to sail on this ship of fools, could we at least be spared the sanctimonious double talk?</p><p>DIMITRI PAVLOFF</p><p><i>Sebastopol</i></p><h3>Not the answer</h3> <p>EDITOR: Am I the only person exasperated by this episodic ranting about gun control every time there's a tragedy involving guns? Think it through. Say we make guns illegal. There's a potential mass murderer. He intends to shoot up a school, theater, mall, whatever. Suddenly he stops. “Ooo, wait,” he says. “I can't do that. Guns are illegal.”</p><p>See, folks, murderers usually aren't law-abiding citizens. You can tell because killing people is already illegal, but they did it anyway. Besides, a potential murderer would simply get illegal guns from the same vendors who stock the nation's ample supplies of illegal drugs.</p><p>Perhaps instead of piling on more laws, we should try to isolate and deal with the actual problem. But we probably won't.</p><p>MARSH ROSE</p><p><i>Cloverdale</i></p><h3>What will be done?</h3> <p>EDITOR: On Sunday morning, an optimistic TV commentator suggested that the Sandy Hook school tragedy might be a tipping point, causing Congress to pull up its socks and do something useful for a change about gun control. Of course, it might just as easily tip the other way if Congress continues to cave to the gun lobby, allowing another maniac to do something that makes sense only to him.</p><p>NORMA CHERLIN</p><p><i>Santa Rosa</i></p><h3>Lost values</h3> <p>EDITOR: I believe the disregard for someone else's life is a natural outcome, a part of the great modern secular society. There's little or no more respect for basics such as the 10 Commandments, no teaching children from the ground up that “you shall love your neighbor as yourself,” especially at school. The loss of spiritual, especially Christian values in this country, not lack of “meaningful gun control,” whatever that is, has been a great tragedy. One can never legislate moral principles and behavior.</p><p>PAUL GEIGER</p><p><i>Sebastopol</i></p><h3>Securing schools</h3> <p>EDITOR: With the Sandy Hook school massacre of 20 children and eight adults, it is finally time we take decisive action to protect this vulnerable segment of our decaying society.</p><p>I strongly urge that 12-foot chain link fences, topped with razor wire, be erected to entirely enclose all of our schools and that each point of entry be controlled by armed security guards with metal detectors. This is just a start. Security specialists should further define the unique protective needs for each school so that all are protected to the maximum possible extent. Forced entry must not be possible.</p><p>Prohibitively expensive you say. OK, so what value do you place on the life of just one unprotected, innocent and vulnerable child? To me there is no limit. Our country throws away billions on much less worthwhile efforts. It's too bad that our liberal society has deteriorated to the point that such measures are needed, but it has, and the time has come for responsible citizenry to take drastic action to protect their families.</p><p>Meanwhile, let's gain control over the proliferation of guns, drugs and empathy-empty individuals who have saturated our society. If we don't, with Sandy Hook a tragic record to be surpassed by the nuts, we will suffer further unbelievable and unendurable sorrow.</p><p>BILL SLEETH</p><p><i>Santa Rosa</i></p><h3>Mental health cuts</h3> <p>EDITOR: After the awful killing of innocent children in Connecticut, people across the nation are calling for gun control, as well they should. There are other issues, however. First, this country does not understand, accept or care for its citizens with different mental and brain issues. Mental illness has been unsympathetically damned. Autism, which I believe was involved in Friday's episode, has been mistreated and neglected.</p><p>Second, when spending must be cut the disabled, elderly and poor are cut first. If people with any neurological differences received treatment throughout their lives, terrible incidents such as these might not happen.</p><p>Millions of people have millions of guns in this country, but only the untreated and misunderstood create this kind of horror.</p><p>In 2003, Sonoma County was informed that it was losing millions each year due to inadequate billing to insurers and Medi-Cal. The Board of Supervisors asked the county counsel to investigate and report back every other month. It never happened. Cuts in services have been draconian ever since. This mirrors cuts across the nation.</p><p>If improvements are made in our country to both gun control and mental health support as a result of this tragedy, these children will have not died in vain.</p><p>KAY ASHBROOK</p><p><i>Santa Rosa</i></p>