Letters to the Editor| South Bend Tribune

At the risk of sounding jaded, callous and cynical, the solution to mass shootings seems simple to me.

1)Change Congress, and

2) Change gun laws

Nothing will change until American voters vote the rascals out of office who are bought by the NRA and elect congressmen(and women) who want to change the laws.

The Second Amendment guarantees the right to own a weapon but does not guarantee the right to own a military-style assault rifle.

Dave Rohrer

Plymouth

I read recently that state Rep. Tim Wesco has authored a bill to make voting by mail in Indiana harder. I guess the 23 measures that our Secretary of State advertised that had made our elections safe and secure are not enough. We need to take even more measures to make voting even harder. I do not remember hearing or reading that there was any voter fraud in Indiana, so why is Indiana falling for conspiracy theories or is it just an excuse to actually make voting harder?Being a property-owning white male, I am among the people the Constitution gave the right to vote to originally. I am disappointed that one of the only two major political parties we have is doing everything it can to make voting harder. Every person over the age of 18 who has not committed election fraud should have easy access to vote for the government representation they want.

Don't worry, I will figure out how to photocopy my drivers license to send in with my application to vote absent. Because I plan on always being out of town on Election Day, and voting by mail is easier and more secure or at least it has been before the Republicans came along to change the laws.So, after you make voting by mail insecure, what is next? Voting Democrat? I wish I was able to move away from Indiana; this state is becoming increasingly hostile to fairness and equality, as the only people with a voice are fearmongering conspiracy theorists.

Howard Turner

Elkhart

Recent news shows we have more than 50 mass killings across our country this year. We are in the 21st century, and still have barbaric behavior in the USA. Contrary to political rhetoric, this indicates we are not the greatest country in the world, but compete with Second World. People are being killed by semiautomatic weapons in groups, there are daily shootings in our cities and even a 6-year-old shoots his teacher.

Current gun rules are too shallow to be useful. Many in Congress are practicing hypocrites by what they do and dont do to make our country better. Leadership? What happened to respect? Many describe themselves as right to life, yet do nothing to diminish this problem of losing lives. The Second Amendment is 232 years old, antiquated and irrelevant. A reason to have a gun is to kill someone.

With all such killings, they have one thing in common: the tools they use are guns. To help solve this problem, we need to remove these tools from our society. Can we do it? It might be difficult but we are the USA and we can do anything if we wish. As a country, are we safer with no guns or if all of us have guns?

Tom Nowak

South Bend

More here:

Letters sound off on gun violence and voting - South Bend Tribune