READER VIEWS
A bipartisan group of 20 U.S. senators, including Arizonans Kyrsten Sinema and Mark Kelly, announced a new framework for regulating guns in America.
Have the Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, N.Y., shootings changed your attitudes on guns? And could you support this bipartisan approach?
Readers respond via letters to the editor and our Voices: Engaging Arizona group on Facebook:
Best we can do for now
Mike McClellan, Gilbert: The deal only nibbles at the edges. But given the NRA-rented Republican Party, I guess it’s the best we can do for now. As to Uvalde, it only reinforces that we need to end the sale of semi-automatic rifles powerful enough to decapitate and pulverize children.
It's a start with one major flaw
Marjorie Conder, Phoenix: I'm glad to see a start on a few gun laws that might save some lives. Having a bi-partisan bill gives me hope that more members of Congress are seeing the need. However, the lack of banning semi-automatic weapons is a major flaw in this bill as far as I've read about it. It's too easy to kill lots of victims in a few seconds with these guns, which were designed for military use.
I fear we won't make real change
Thomas Klabunde, Tempe: As a lifelong gun owner, my attitudes toward reasonable, responsible gun laws has not changed in light of recent events. What I fear is more kabuki theater by a few Republicans who are obviously feeling some heat, but no real commitment to meaningful change. In the meantime, the rest of the Republican senators will continue to stonewall measures supported by 70-80 percent of Americans.
I back gun bill, but it's weak tea
Michael McAfee, Mesa: I am an outdoorsman and a hunter. I own more firearms than I have fingers, but I have always
supported reasonable gun control efforts. The recent mass murders have not changed my mind. So far as the proposed bipartisan gun control efforts are concerned, assuming that the actual law reflects the general issues that have been disclosed, I think that it is weak tea. I still support the effort since any effort toward quelling the gun violence and carnage we experience in America today is a (baby) step forward.
No on gun bill, unless they do this
David K. Winstanley, Mesa: My answer is no. But that is because there is nothing new about these incidents so
they have not changed my mind. However, I would be in favor of what I have been reading about this proposed legislation as long as red-flag requirements provided adequate and full due process.
We already draw lines. Can't own nuke
Jeremy M. Helfgot, Phoenix: I think that any movement on this is a good sign, given what seems like decades of stagnation. But these are first steps, and small ones at that. If we are really going to address these issues in policy.
In part, I think the issues around regulating firearms stem from a widely held
and utterly absurd belief that the Second Amendment is the only clause in the U.S. Constitution that is absolute and not subject to restriction.
Setting aside that the part about the well-organized militia being essential is usually ignored, the "right to bear arms" is already abridged. Try building a pipe bomb, or a dirty bomb, or a nuclear device, and then assert the Second Amendment as your defense. We'll be sure to send snacks when you're in the pen.
We need to get back to basics, and fundamentally recognize that a school kid's right to live outweighs someone else's right to possess the tools necessary to kill them.