I’m sure parents, teachers, as well as all of us want to protect all students and put a stop to the gun massacres in our schools. When I was a child in school, we were instructed to walk quickly out of our classroom to the hallway, kneel with our heads against the wall and wrap our arms around our heads, as a way to protect us from the effects of a nuclear bomb. Somehow this action would protect us from the actions of another country.
Today our schools have an even graver responsibility, to protect their students from the violence of a mass shooter. Teachers are taught to direct their students to get under their desk; supposedly this action would protect them from a weapon of war? Why are these weapons even sold to the ordinary citizen?
For the first time in several years, the government has passed laws that touch on protecting our students but it is not enough. Parents are outraged that automatic weapons are readily available. The writers of the Second Amendment certainly never meant for any citizen to own weapons such as these.
I am asking citizens, including gun owners, to encourage firearms companies to follow the example of Walmart and Dick’s Sporting Goods, to stop selling automatic weapons. We can’t bring back all these children whose lives were brutally taken away from their parents but we can work harder to encourage ending the sale of automatic weapons to the common citizen. Your children will thank you.
Darlene Graham
Plainfield