EDITOR:

In recent weeks I have read two letters regarding mass shootings in the Daily Press. The second writer accused the first writer of using NRA propaganda and then she goes on to write her letter using emotion and limited firearm knowledge. First of all according to the justice department long guns are used in 3% of all firearm homicides in the U.S. Of that 3% only a fraction are so called assault weapons. So even if we were able to eliminate all assault type weapons from the U.S. soil the U.S. firearm murder rate would not change. The rest of the letter is full of irrelevant and dishonest facts. For starters Rita Wickman states “the majority of mass shootings are carried out by men” (mostly white). The implication being that white guys are prone to mass violence. The fact is that more than half of the males in the U.S. happen to be white. It stands for reason that most of the shooters would be as well. Rita also states “assault weapon ammo shreds and pulverizes tissue” hardly something a hunter would want. Really? Except for rubber bullets, all bullets cause massive damage as a hunter I do want that, as a homeowner I want that and as a bow hunter I look for those features when buying broadheads. Ms. Wickham also gave a frightening description of assault type weapons. The reality is that semi-automatic weapons may come in hundreds of styles but they all have the same basic function. What Rita left out of her letter is that the fact that the overwhelming majority of mass shootings occur in gun free zones, and that the very best police response time is 3 minutes. 180 seconds is a horrible amount of time to be defenseless against a shooter and from the shooters point of view it’s a huge amount of time to run up the body count. We need to stop the shootings from happening in the first place and if we can’t, we need to end them quickly. I propose fewer gun free zones (not more) since children are our most precious resource. I propose that we think outside the box on protecting schools.

I suggest volunteers, parents, retired police officers, former military, etc. snd anyone who is willing to disrupt a killer as the precious seconds tick down until the police arrive.

Please consider me the first volunteer.

Charles S. Smouthers, Jr.

Rapid River