Reminders of lives cut short by guns

Dear Editor,

The T-shirt project is finished. After two weeks of 13hour days I finally have that enormous sense of relief that comes with finishing a big project with a deadline.

Why did I do it? The need for gun control legislation is paramount. I put the name of a victim of a mass murder on each of the 100 shirts. With each shirt, I thought about how old that 6-year-old from Sandy Hook would be today; how much the grandchildren missed the 61-year-old woman gunned down in Buffalo. There was a constant awareness that these were only some of the dead, the project focused on the murder of children. With the inclusion of the massacre in Buffalo, we are beginning to include the racially motivated murders as well.

I wonder when we will reach the tipping point, when so many voters have been harmed by the lack of action by the legislators that the elected finally look up and take notice, and finally realize that they are buying campaign funds from corporate interests with the blood of the voters and their families. When will some of our politicians have the courage to say that the Second Amendment needs to be amended to fit the needs of today?

I am baffled by the fact that gun companies can not be sued if their product is used to kill someone. I can be sued if someone trespasses on my property and gets injured while on my property illegally. It’s a blatant example of how corporate money works in our government. Thanks to a bill passed in 2005, gun companies are protected in a way that no average citizen could dream of.

The shirts are on display, having finally delivered the shirts, hangers and stakes. It has rained, making them hang sodden and limp, like little sad ghosts dripping tears from the dismal reminders of lives that were cut way too short with brutal, mindless and evil intention. Between the six religious organizations that have participated, there are little graveyards on the lawns of these entities all over town.

— Carolyn Dickey,

Kingston, N.Y.