Not safer with guns

When a powerful organization called al-Qaida nurtures the violent fantasies of angry and disaffected men, and enables them to obtain weapons and kill innocent civilians, we call that terrorism.

When a profit-driven industry lobby called the National Rifle Association makes it easy as pie for any angry, or even crazy, person to get handguns and assault weapons and act out their own violent fantasies against family and community members, does that count as terrorism, too?

As with most of the stupidity and irrationality in American public life, our friends, neighbors and family members are being killed on a weekly basis nationwide because this is what we have asked for, either by voting for politicians who are stooges of the NRA, or by not voting at all, thus leaving the decision to zealots.

So tell me again that a nation flooded with guns and plagued with mass murders is somehow freer and safer than nations like Australia, Canada or England with vastly lower murder rates. Somehow, I’m not feeling it.

I’ve been a gun owner all my adult life, am pro-hunting and attended the police funeral following the previous Moscow mass murders in 2007. Still not feeling it.

Chris Norden

Moscow