Are background checks so bad?

Re “Why gun laws stay the same,” Opinion, Nov. 7

Jonah Goldberg says that people asking for sweeping new gun control measures mock people who offer thoughts and prayers to gun violence victims.

We don’t mock those who pray. We mock those who do nothing to stop the gun violence in our country. We in the gun control advocacy groups ask for gun safety laws, enforcing existing laws, outlawing weapons of war and requiring everyone who buys a gun to pass a background check and have their firearm registered.

Really, I do more to get a driver license in California than I would have to do to purchase a gun in most parts of our country. Sheila Goldberg Venice The writer is a board member of Women Against Gun Violence.

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Goldberg ignores basic truths about guns, which I have shot since about the age of 9.

He writes, “Nor would banning assault weapons, however defined, put much of a dent in the problem.” It is common sense that the numbers of people killed in mass murders would be lower if shooters did not have semi-automatic rifles with clips that provide up to 90 rounds or more of quick murderous firepower.

Tell the families of victims that we do nothing because we don’t want to put just a little “dent” in the problem. Any lives saved by the common-sense ban on assault weapons and their enabling clips would be worth the great “sacrifice” the affected gun owners would have to make in the name of public safety. Peter Zschiesche San Diego

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Goldberg asserts that those of us who want “sweeping” gun control measures are really just elitists who can't get their facts straight. His judgments are, literally, elitist themselves.

Gun control measures would be complex to enact, obviously. Instead of giving facts on a particular aspect of the issue and opining on a path forward, Goldberg sits back and throws a bunch of gasoline on the fire.

This is lazy journalism. Christina Hosmer Laguna Niguel