To the Editor:
Information that “Senators Agree on Framework for Gun Security” (entrance web page, June 13) confirms the place Congress is as an establishment. The minimal proposals are hailed not as a result of they reply meaningfully to the epidemic of gun violence however as a result of the Senate is proposing to reply in any respect.
That is what the slaughter of harmless youngsters hath wrought: no age limitations on the acquisition of AR-15 semiautomatic rifles, a lot much less any ban on their buy.
Within the ethical desert that’s the Republican Senate on gun points, we have a good time a teaspoon of water.
Michael Curry
Austin, Texas
To the Editor:
The bipartisan plan proposed for the Senate is attempting to stanch a serious arterial hemorrhage with a Band-Assist! Ban semiautomatic handguns and rifles, already! It’s the weapons.
Jim Webster
Shelter Island, N.Y.
To the Editor:
After Sandy Hook in 2012, I made a decision to get higher knowledgeable concerning the background test course of. Throughout a lull in gun gross sales at a close-by sporting items retailer, I received a useful clerk to point out me the suitable background test type. To finish it might have taken me 10 minutes, max.
“If I need to purchase a gun,” I requested, “how shortly will I have the ability to get approval?”
“Outcomes sometimes come again on-line in quarter-hour or much less. Between 85 and 90 p.c of purposes are accepted on the spot.”
This course of contrasted with a a lot lengthier, slower full background test I underwent every faculty yr to be accepted to volunteer in a faculty library.
Lives already misplaced to gun violence can’t be changed. Expanded background checks and “crimson flag” provisions are a begin towards slowing future carnage.
Jinny Batterson
Waynesfield, Ohio
To the Editor:
Federal legislation requires that the semiautomatic shotguns used to hunt migratory waterfowl should not hearth greater than three photographs with out being reloaded. The thought is to provide geese a good likelihood to flee being killed. The legislation gives no such limitation on the weapons of alternative used to homicide youngsters.
Shouldn’t the legislation give youngsters not less than the identical safety because it offers geese?
Alex Sanders
Charleston, S.C.
Misogyny and Mass Homicide
To the Editor:
Re “Searching for Clues Why Gunmen Are So Younger” (entrance web page, June 2):
It’s harmful to speak concerning the rising sample of teenage mass shooters with out highlighting a extra frequent thread that unites so many assailants: their violent hatred of ladies.
It’s develop into a well-known sample at this level. After the preliminary shock and horror of a mass taking pictures wears off, legislation enforcement and media start reporting that the assailant had a historical past of on-line harassment of ladies, sexual assault and/or home violence. The Instructional Fund to Cease Gun Violence discovered {that a} staggering two-thirds of mass shootings had been linked to home violence.
For months earlier than the taking pictures at Robb Elementary Faculty, the shooter directed violent harassment towards younger ladies on-line, threatening to kidnap, rape or homicide them. He then shot his grandmother earlier than coming into Robb Elementary Faculty.
Shooters in Santa Barbara, Orlando, Sutherland Springs, Montreal and elsewhere have likewise been motivated by or had histories of violent misogyny, together with partaking in on-line harassment, home violence and sexual assault, and intentionally concentrating on girls in a mass taking pictures.
If we need to handle the scourge of gun violence and mass shootings in America, we now have to be trustworthy concerning the function of misogynistic violence as a gateway to mass violence.
Lynn Hecht Schafran
New York
The author is senior vp at Authorized Momentum, a authorized advocacy group for girls.
Jan. 6, on a Cut up Display
To the Editor:
Re “Trump Rebuffed Aides Over Loss, Denying Actuality” (entrance web page, June 14):
As I watched Monday’s listening to of the Home committee investigating the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, I used to be struck by the comity among the many committee’s members — so in contrast to the raucous, uncivil, unbecoming habits we now have grown accustomed to seeing of late in public congressional proceedings.
It took two diametrically opposed issues to convey us this welcome reminder of how authorities is meant to work: the Jan. 6 committee members’ love for democracy, and Donald Trump’s abject contempt for it.
Jon D. Morrow
New York
Overseas Coverage Advisers, Not Militarists
To the Editor:
“A Biden Workforce’s Pricey Concord,” by Peter Beinart (Opinion visitor essay, June 6), argues that President Biden’s overseas coverage advisers are a bunch of “well-mannered militarists.” That is an unfair characterization of Mr. Biden’s world counselors.
Most of them are well-known for his or her independence of thoughts and their need for nonmilitary options. That is an particularly egregious cost towards Mr. Biden’s secretary of state, Tony Blinken, whom Mr. Beinart singles out.
It’s true that Mr. Blinken as soon as labored at a consulting agency whose purchasers included protection contractors. However Mr. Blinken’s inclinations as a diplomat have been invariably towards peaceable engagement, not wartime motion.
Mr. Beinart cites as proof of Mr. Blinken’s confrontational method his current China speech. However, truly, in that handle Mr. Blinken went out of his method to state that the administration’s overseas coverage relies on two elementary paperwork: the U.N. Constitution and the Common Declaration of Human Rights. These are hardly the beliefs of a hawk or a warfare lover.
Stephen Schlesinger
New York
The author is a fellow on the Century Basis, former director of the World Coverage Institute and the writer of “Act of Creation: The Founding of the United Nations.”
Supply: NY Times