Letters to the Editor: Uvalde police failed. So much for 'good guys with guns'
To the editor: As with any other crisis, law enforcement will learn from this what they did right and what they could have done better to stop the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday. ("As police waited, children inside Texas school called 911 begging for help," May 27)
The only irrefutable conclusion, though, is that the National Rifle Assn. is wrong when it says that the only person who can stop a bad guy with a gun, is a good guy with a gun. A good man with a gun is not enough to stop a bad man with a gun. Here, many good people with guns weren't able to save all these children and teachers.
Yes, guns can serve as deterrents sometimes or help end a killer's rampage. But the only way to have saved those precious lives would have been for this disturbed young man not to have had those assault weapons in the first place.
Douglas Green, Los Angeles
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To the editor: While there's no question that the police failed miserably to do their job and, once again, a "good guy with a gun" didn't stop the "bad guy with a gun," didn't the owner of the shop where the shooter bought his weapons have a civic duty (I understand not a legal one) to report to the police the fact that an 18-year-old just bought two assault rifles and hundreds of rounds of ammunition?
If Congress won't ban the sale of assault rifles completely, it should at least expand all background checks and allow seven to 10 days to ensure that a thorough, not just criminal, investigation can be conducted.
Morty Mittenthal, Pasadena
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To the editor: Am I the only one who's noticed how quickly the police respond to a Black man selling a "loosie" cigarette or allegedly passing a phony $20 bill, but how slowly they respond to a classroom of children being mowed down by an AR-15-style weapon in the hands of an 18 year-old?
How curious.
Liz White, Los Angeles
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To the editor: To hear police begging for more bulletproof vests, more automatic weapons and more armored vehicles — not for a war zone, not for prisons, but for a school — makes me sick.
I'm nearing the end of my run on this Earth. I feel so sad and ashamed of what I'm leaving behind.
Mark Scott, Seal Beach
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To the editor: After listening to U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and other Republicans suggest we arm teachers, I ask how would an armed teacher have stopped a man with an assault rifle? Why is this the responsibility of the teaching staff?
Teachers want to keep their students safe, and since our elected representatives will do nothing, I suggest that all teachers in the United States refuse to go back to the classroom in the fall until federal laws are passed that will better control the millions of guns in this country.
Patricia Murphy O'Donnell, Palm Desert
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
