What will it take?

Dear Editor:
I had to respond to Delegate Larry D. Kump’s January 9 letter about the mass murders in Connecticut. He stated, “For want of a defensive firearm, many died.” Let’s remember where the shooter obtained his weapons – from the home of a woman who kept them for defense. Not only did her weapons not aid her, but an additional 26 people are dead because she kept weapons in her home.

Arming school personnel does not make sense. As a teacher, I have seen children when they meet the DARE officer for the first time. The first question they invariably ask is, “Can we see your gun?” A gun in a school among inquisitive children is an invitation to accidental shootings. Many more children will die and few, if any, “bad guys” will be taken out.

Delegate Kump’s do-nothing attitude is troubling to me. As has been said before, doing the same thing over and over and expecting things to change is a definition of insanity. If we continue to make no changes in mental health care, background checks, and the sale of certain weapons and ammunition, we can clearly expect more deaths in movie theaters, shopping malls, hospitals and especially schools.

If the death of 20 young children is not enough to move us, even ever so slightly, toward reasonable gun control measures, what, exactly, would it take?

Donna Meyer
Berkeley Springs