What are we doing to stop gun violence?

Jill Lawrence’s column “On gun control, there's nothing and everything left to say” made me wonder how many of the readers who agree with her have joined or are donating to a gun control organization, such as Everytown for Gun Safety or the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

When the topic came up in my book group, all the members jumped on me for being a gun owner. Then I asked them, since they were obviously passionate about the issue, whether any of them had ever joined or contributed to a gun control group. None had. In fact, whenever I get into this conversation with people who say they support gun control, I always ask the same question. Not a single person has ever told me they belong to a group that fights for sensible gun restrictions.

After I left the USA TODAY Editorial Board, I joined Everytown. The intensity gap on this issue is very real. People who care about putting reasonable limits on guns just don’t care enough to join the groups, or at least not in anywhere close to the numbers of gun owners who join the National Rifle Association. The NRA didn’t publicly disclose its membership numbers when I looked into this as a journalist years ago, but the guess was around 5 million. When I asked the Brady Coalition how many people had donated to them, the number they gave me was fewer than 100,000.

Until that changes, people who support gun control are always going to lose on this issue.

George Hager Washington, D.C.

The answer to stopping mass shootings is a multi-tiered response. Our culture needs to make many changes.

At the forefront of this issue is the renewed discussion of the influence of violent movies, TV shows and video games on the psyches of consumers. It appears that our denial of any relationship between violent behavior and entertainment is coming back to haunt us. Douglas R. Leander

Tacoma, Wash.