Reviews | After Louisville, who can we blame for the gun problem?

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While I agree with Perry Bacon Jr.’s general take on gun violence, his solution, as expressed in the title of his April 12 op-ed, If They Wanted, Republicans Could Put end to this epidemic of mass shootings, is unrealistic. Yes, if the Republicans wanted to, but they don’t. It should be clear.

Since 2014, the United States has averaged more than one mass shooting per day. One per day ! To hope or expect that something will change after so many years of inaction is indeed exaggerated, in the words of Mr. Bacons. What needs to happen is that the American public wakes up and refuses to vote for anyone who refuses to support meaningful gun legislation. This can be done without infringing on Second Amendment rights. Republicans will quickly get the message.

But change will only happen if and until it is demanded at the ballot box. Hoping that somehow an Abraham Lincoln or a Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. will magically appear out of the current Republican Party to pull it out of the desert is like hoping that pigs could fly.

According to Perry Bacon Jr., we have two problems in America: too many guns and too many Republicans. He explained that if it weren’t for the Republican recalcitrance (including Fox News and former President Donald Trump’s bonus points for Mr. Bacons’ argument), we could get to the point of no longer having too many guns. But he didn’t explain how many guns would be too many guns, or how reducing the number of legally obtainable guns would prevent sociopaths bent on mass killing from ignoring the law and finding a means, with illegal weapons or other means, of achieving that goal.

It was irresponsible of the President of the United States to reflexively blame Republicans for the mass violence that has become endemic in our society. Also true for a Post columnist.

Jack DeVine, Potomac Falls

While I’m anti-gun, I don’t think the mass shooting problem is the fault of the Republican parties, but rather America’s deep-rooted gun culture. I agree that gun reform is necessary, but it will not be found within the Republican Party. Maybe some would be swayed, but many would feel vindicated in their belief that the government is out to get them and take away their rights and freedoms. Extremists would view these steps toward gun reform as tyrannical and overstepping the bounds of government, as many believe more guns are needed to combat gun violence.

Arms control is not a political issue but a cultural one.

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