We need answers to these questions on mass shootings

Published 1:30 am Sunday, June 5, 2022

A few years back my husband and I were on a group tour in Italy. One night an Australian woman looked at her phone and told the group of a mass shooting at a concert in Las Vegas. She looked at us and said, “What is wrong with Americans?”

After the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, followed so soon after the grocery store shooting in Buffalo, N.Y., the answer to that question has several parts. What is wrong with the Republican senators who refuse to vote for commonsense gun legislation more than 20 times in the 10 years since Sandy Hook? They claim to be pro-life, yet they continue to let anyone buy assault weapons that have only one purpose.

What is wrong with the Texas legislature and Gov. Greg Abbott who recently passed legislation that allows anyone to carry any type of gun anywhere with no license?

What was wrong with President George W. Bush who, in 2004, let the assault weapon ban expire without even a mention of whether or not it should continue?

Finally what is wrong with the millions of Americans who continue to vote for these Republicans who allow these types of weapons to be legal? Is a lower tax bill worth the deaths of innocent American children?

What is wrong with our health care system that does not provide the mental health help to people who need it?

President Johnson used threats, intimidation and blackmail in order to get three civil rights bills passed. Maybe it is time for President Biden to do the same.

Jan Goldberg

Riverside, Ill.