The July 6 article in the local section of The Recorder about a Charlemont gun store owner and reserve police officer offering free gun safety classes to teachers is shameful at best. What a distasteful use of half of a page of our community’s newspaper, while so many of us are still deep in mourning from the latest act of gun violence. In the wake of so much national mourning from gun-induced tragedies, what is this paper trying to imply by publishing this man’s political agenda, that armed teachers should be able to shoot and kill our children in and out of the classroom? Does the Charlemont Police Department support the idea of having armed vigilante citizens doing its job for them? What happened to the editorial integrity and tact of The Recorder? Perhaps it died along with the 50,000-plus acts of gun violence that took place in America over the past 12 months. Perhaps this paper is in need of some inspiring stories of how Franklin County residents are coming together to grieve gun violence, and move beyond an irrational and fear-based culture.
Joshua Freund
Greenfield