Fresno Bee letters: Reactions to the school shootings and calls for gun control

Blame it all on the 2nd Amendment

Imagine what this country would look like if there was no Second Amendment. We’d be like every other industrial nation. No mass shootings, a lot less violent crimes involving weapons, less fear of getting shot by your neighbor over a dispute, less polarizing position between the two political parties, maybe even less “mental illness,” etc.

Now let’s face it: colonial life, when the Bill of Rights was written, was much different than life is today in this country. Back then, they were more worried about British soldiers trying to retake this country without the large organized military we have now. I believe that is the main reason we have the right to bear arms to protect ourselves.

I doubt the Founding Fathers foresaw that Britain would become our closest ally and we’d have to bear arms to protect ourselves from each other. Unfortunately, what’s done is done. We, our children, and their children will have to live with and some will die because of the Second Amendment.

How did shooter buy the guns?

Here is a question no one has addressed: Where did that scumbag Ramos, an 18-year-old high school drop-out, get in so short of a time about $1,500 to purchase two rifles, 300-plus rounds of ammunition, extra rifle magazines and body arrmour and also have a truck to drive?

He was a monster and his family is to blame.

Fortify schools to keep shooters out

Not another school shooting. Not again. What can we do? I believe the answer lies in our national response to the events of a dark dark day two decades ago: Sept. 11, 2001.

The Department of Homeland Security was formed, and airport security became much stricter. Why should we not apply the same concept to the safety of our schools? Metal detectors monitored by armed security personnel should be at every single entrance of every single school. Extra time to enter school campuses should become par for the course, just like we now arrive at the airport two hours before our flights depart, instead of one.

Right now many school playgrounds are completely open to busy streets, separated only by chain-link fencing. That fencing needs to be replaced with concrete brick walls, topped with concertina wire, to prevent potential shooters from mowing down innocent children in a hail of bullets.

Yes, schools will become fortresses, but what alternative do we have? The DHS should be tasked with school campus security, giving nationwide priority to this emergency. If our children are not at the heart of our homeland security, then I don't know what is.

Needed: Common sense gun control

With the recent shooting in Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas, the nation mourned the killing of 19 students and two adults. Then someone mentioned sensible gun legislation and the Republican politicians and their supporters’ attitudes immediately changed as they have with other tragedies.

The NRA and gun lobbyists reminded them who they report to, so they immediately joined the NRA mantra:

(1) The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun

(2) Guns don’t kill people, people kill people

(3) This is a mental health issue, not gun control issue

(4) We can’t restrict guns to good citizens.

Republican politicians won’t even consent to sensible background checks, even it helps eliminate guns from people with known mental issues such as the Uvalde shooter. This could have avoided one more bad guy with a gun because we know that 19 good guys with guns were not effective.

The NRA continues to be against sensible gun legislation because they know violence promotes fear and fear sells guns. More guns sales means more profits for the gun industry and more political donations. Let’s elect politicians that represent common-sense gun control.

Protect schools with cameras

Let us ask Walmart or Target or so many business how to put all those cameras in your business. We have all seen pictures of their customers on film doing whatever. Now I am being silly because we don’t need anyone to tell us. We have experts plenty. Why don’t we have cameras everywhere in all of our schools? So security persons can watch and if they see a stranger enter by the front or side door, they can react and save lives of youngsters or adults.

That is a start. It is an answer that will work, but do we have the dollars? If that is the reason, then everyone in charge of the tax dollars needs to come up with answers to keep their jobs.

Make leaders view the crime scenes

As soon as possible, I want a joint session of Congress with mandated attendance of all members, the president, the vice president, all members of the Cabinet and Supreme Court, along with the board & executives of NRA. They are to be given barf bags and Kleenex. They will be required to stay in the room.

On a big screen they will be forced to watch a loop for a couple of hours of all crime-scene photos of each person murdered from Uvalde and the Sandy Hook school shootings.

Value of armed security at schools

In 2015 I was in my first semester of graduate school at UC Merced when a student held a classroom at knifepoint, then stabbed four members of our campus community. We as a community were protected from further harm because we had an armed police officer on campus who was able to engage the attacker within minutes.

Unlike some people in the public discourse, I have seen firsthand the value of having armed professional police officers in our schools.

Change might be necessary going forward as we are learning more about the most recent shooting in Texas. We’ve heard that a resource officer didn’t stop the attacker, that local police waited and didn’t try to engage the gunman, and have reports of parents being thrown to the ground, handcuffed and pepper sprayed as the gunman was still in the building. Hopefully these points will be answered as more information comes out.

If these reports are true and it showcases a failing of law enforcement, we as a community need to ask what our elected officials and law enforcement leaders are doing to protect the children of our community.

This story was originally published June 5, 2022 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Fresno Bee letters: Reactions to the school shootings and calls for gun control."