First, from columnist Gail Collins: "What Doesn't Happen After a Mass Shooting":

"...For a whole lot of people, the right to bear arms includes the right to not even bother thinking about whether you happen to be packing heat at any particular moment in time. Just recently, Jeff Wilson, a Republican state senator from Washington, was arrested in Hong Kong for bringing a gun onto a plane in his carry-on luggage. Wilson claimed it was 'an honest mistake.'..."

She started off by quoting Mike Johnson: "The problem is the human heart, not guns."

What puzzles me is that after decades of gun violence in the U.S., I can only think of ONE person - not a politician - who claims that the problem is bad parenting, per se. That is, he pointed out that in the Southeast, in the 1960s, many teen boys had lots of hunting rifles kept in their cars in the parking lot, but no one was worried about that, since no one would have imagined that any teen would use those guns against people.

I.e., the problem today, he said, is out-of-control feelings. Not mental illness, not individual monsters, but parents who allow their kids to believe their feelings are more important than innocent lives.

If true, then why don't politicians say that in so many words? Something's wrong.

Anyway, here's the other piece, in response to Oct. 31's short piece by Stephen King:

To the Editor:

Re “18 More Deaths From Our Gun Addiction,” by Stephen King (Opinion guest essay, Oct. 31):

Mr. King’s frustration with gun violence and his feeling of helplessness for our country are not unique, but they are born more from exhaustion than reality.

I reject his view that “there is no solution to the gun problem.” We may be “addicted to firearms,” but America has overcome addiction before with the same grit and persistence that helped end slavery and bend our collective views away from racism.

Cultural change takes generations. The gun culture we mistakenly fell in love with was bolstered by decades of green plastic Army men and Nerf and cap guns handed to preschoolers for play, classroom history lessons centered around military battles, and movie and television hailing the best gun handler as the hero. That was my reality, and I passed that culture to my children.

“The gun problem” is just that: a problem to be solved. Just as we created that problem, we can change it. Every shooting reminds us collectively that firearms violence has become the No. 1 killer of children and teens under the age of 19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Shooting drills are a ubiquitous part of the lives of most schoolchildren.

A good coach knows when to substitute for exhausted players, and it’s OK that Mr. King and others need some bench time. Substituting in are parents afraid to send their kids to school, energized politicians, influencers, researchers and business owners looking over their shoulders for a catastrophic event. I am surrounded by them and their contagious attitudes.

Mr. King may find “little more to write” right now, and that’s OK. The fresh legs off the bench are many, and they are moving with optimism, impatience and persistence to find the right courses of action that will make America’s gun violence problem no longer exist.

I’m sure of that.

Katherine Schweit
Centreville, Va.

The writer, a retired F.B.I. agent, created and ran the F.B.I.’s active shooter program, set up after the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre. She is the author of “Stop the Killing: How to End the Mass Shooting Crisis” and “How to Talk About Guns With Anyone.”
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These were both in today's New York Times.

> What puzzles me is that after decades of gun violence in the U.S., I can only think of ONE person - not a politician - who claims that the problem is bad parenting, per se. That is, he pointed out that in the Southeast, in the 1960s, many teen boys had lots of hunting rifles kept in their cars in the parking lot, but no one was worried about that, since no one would have imagined that any teen would use those guns against people.
>
> I.e., the problem today, he said, is out-of-control feelings. Not mental illness, not individual monsters, but parents who allow their kids to believe their feelings are more important than innocent lives.
>
> If true, then why don't politicians say that in so many words? Something's wrong.

Just to clarify:

I should have said "school parking lot"

and

"why don't pro-gun politicians say that."