In commenting on the mass shooting in Las Vegas, Bill O’Reilly, former Fox News commentator, said, “This is the price of freedom.” But Great Britain, Canada and Australia are every bit as free as we are and their citizens do not pay this price. Why not?
Televangelist Pat Robertson blames the Las Vegas mass shooting on “profound disrespect for the president” and “the institutions of government.” Does that mean that the mass shootings that occurred during Obama’s presidency (Newtown, Aurora, Orlando, Tucson, etc.) can be blamed on the profound disrespect that Robertson and others on the religious right showed Obama and his administration?
In a commentary in The Tribune on Oct. 4, Rich Lowry accused Hillary Clinton of being a “low information advocate” for gun control, because she doesn’t understand that adding a silencer to a gun doesn’t really reduce the sound of a gunshot by that much. If that is true, why are Republicans so eager to pass the Hearing Protection Act that would make silencers legally available to the gun-toting public? Why don’t they advocate for noise-blocking earmuffs instead? They are far more effective at hearing protection.
Many on the right say that now is not the time to be talking about gun control. They, too, are grabbing at straws looking for an explanation for such senseless carnage, when the answer is staring them in the face: the ready availability of assault rifles to just about anybody who wants one, or a dozen.
Donald H. Freeman Jr., Salt Lake City