Instead of raving about a caravan of unarmed, desperate people, including mothers with small children, the president might do better to worry about white, male American shooters killing people all over the country. If you're a student or a teacher like me, you're in the line of fire. If you go out to your favorite club or bar like the latest innocent victims in California, you're in the line of fire ("Marine combat veteran kills 12 in rampage at California bar," StarTribune.com, Nov. 8). If you go your place of worship, as victims in Pittsburgh recently discovered, or if you go shopping, as other victims around the nation also recently found out, you're in the line of fire. Apparently only the halls of Congress, and airports with their metal detectors, are now safe. Are we going to have TSA or Homeland Security checkpoints everywhere? I would not be surprised to hear the NRA promote that idea as its next brilliant solution to gun violence in this nation.
I also don't want to hear from anyone about more "good" people with guns being the answer. The security guard and the police officer who responded to the 911 call (and who was trained, unlike most citizens), were among the victims in Wednesday night's deadly shooting.
We need to get our priorities straight in this nation. Are our children, or we ourselves, the blood sacrifice we are willing to pay for this easy access to handguns and semi-automatic weapons? It appears so. Our president, the day after elections, seemed intent on raising fears about a group of weary refugees seeking asylum. Meanwhile, another All-American guy with a gun destroyed more families and more young people's lives. And so it goes in this land of the supposedly free.
When will we learn? When will we hold our elected officials accountable? When do we stop the carnage?
Eva Lockhart, Edina
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AP: Dateline [city, state]
[date]
Another mass shooting has occurred. Police reported emergency calls from [name of establishment] about a white male with ["a" or number] [AK-47(s) or assault rifle(s) or semi-automatic rifle(s) or high-capacity handgun(s)] firing shots inside [establishment], killing [number] people and wounding [number]. The shooter also killed himself.