Letters: Reader reactions to shootings in Oregon and Connecticut

Letters to the editor By Letters to the editor
on December 17, 2012 at 8:00 PM
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Post at My Oregon, the Oregonian's online community opinion hub.
Print publication: Tuesday, Dec. 18

Gun violence is a public health threat that spreads from perpetrators to victims, survivors and beyond. It shatters the sense of security for individuals and the entire community. 

We need to seriously evaluate the milieu in which our children grow up, especially that in which boys come of age. Young men are exposed to a toxic mix of gun worship and casual violence-as-entertainment in all media. This is more troubling when we under-identify mental health issues. If these young men disconnect from family, school, justice or mental health systems, they escape unnoticed without treatment or support. 

The Bill of Rights protects our citizens' right to bear arms for self-defense. 

In the past two decades, we have experienced a gruesome pattern of random shooters who intentionally terrorize and massacre innocents. 

If the Second Amendment is a given, then against whom or what are they defending themselves? 

Northeast Portland  

State Rep. Dennis Richardson, R-Central Point, tells us that all we have to do to avoid tragedies such as the one that beset Newton, Conn., on Dec. 14 is to ensure that teachers and administrators carry firearms ("Teachers should carry guns, lawmaker says," Dec. 16). 

In response, I ask the representative and others to imagine the chaos inherent in a shootout between teachers, administrators and a gunman at a grade school, with frightened students caught in the crossfire. Richardson advises that if he had been a teacher or administrator at that Connecticut grade school, the tragedy would not have occurred. 

Well, with his absurd and untenable approach to school safety, most parents I know would never allow their children to attend a school in which Richardson was a member of the faculty or administration. 

West Linn

Eric Mortenson's piece about the mass shootings is one of the best articles I've ever read ("Anguished questions, one gentle answer," Dec. 15). The quotes from child psychiatrist Dr. Ajit Jetmalani, are so simple, yet so profound. 

What do we do to stop this insanity? For more than 25 years I have talked about the need for changes. As a parent of three sons and as an elementary school teacher, I've wanted to stop the violent video games, movies and TV shows. I've wanted stricter gun control. The killings at Clackamas Town Center brought things closer to home. The killing of kindergartners brought things to an even more unimaginably dark level. 

At issue are media violence, stricter gun control, better mental health services and mentoring for troubled youths. It's time to stop talking and start doing. I'm picking one focus, and I urge others to do the same. 

Let's all do the simple, yet profound thing Jetmalani says: "We should be focused on loving acts toward others, because that's what we can control." 

Northeast Portland

The conditions that led to shootings in schools and other public places are numerous. They run the gamut from challenged families to violence glorification in media to de-funded education and social services to my-way-or-the-highway role-modeling by political leaders. These are deep-seated problems and will not be corrected rapidly. But when children sitting in their classrooms are being shot, we must look for preventive action quickly. 

Reasonable measures to limit gun proliferation, especially for semiautomatic and military-style weapons that have utterly no place in civil society, should be demanded by the public and legislated at state and national levels. And members and supporters of the National Rifle Association should insist that their organization release its irresponsible stranglehold on politicians, which is preventing them from considering even the smallest gun control measures. 

Southwest Portland

Despite the First Amendment, I can't yell "Fire" in a crowded theater, but (with an appropriate permit), I can enter that theater with a concealed weapon. 

Does that mean that the Second Amendment is more important than the First? Or that speech is more dangerous than bullets? 


In what mad universe is the phrase "a well-regulated militia" taken to be logically equivalent to "an individual with an assault weapon"? 

Southwest Portland

One lesson that we have not yet observed with the two tragedies in Oregon and Connecticut is that when the police, fire and emergency responders arrived, they went into the building. 

It is against human nature to run into danger, into the line of fire. Though we do not know each of their names, we see their response. 

From Connecticut to Oregon, our first responders remind us of their training, their honor and their valor. 


How many more shootings at schools, malls, theaters and colleges will it take before we realize that must create a "true" mental health system in this country? 

Every year that we face budget cuts, our leaders all make the same decision: They cut mental health and counseling services. We need a new kind of leadership from our state Legislature, our Congress, our county commissions, our city councils, our school boards, and our college administrations. We need leadership that recognizes the importance of mental health and counseling services and places these services at the top of the priority list, instead of at the bottom. 

The safety of those we love depends on it. 


On Friday afternoon, as I led my classroom of pre-kindergarten students in singing "Frosty the Snowman" and we enjoyed goodies on our last day before winter break, I held back tears, thinking, "This is what those children in Connecticut should be doing right now, too." 

Northeast Portland

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