Readers React: 12 killed in a mass shooting is now Page 5 news

To the editor: It is a sad commentary on our gun-crazed culture that the slaughter of 12 people at their workplace with injuries to six more, including a law enforcement officer, and emotional trauma to countless others, is not front-page news. Instead, in the Los Angeles Times’ June 1 print edition, it merited only a few paragraphs on Page A5.

June 1 was the start of Gun Violence Awareness Month, and on that day the lives of 12 Americans were buried figuratively in the pages of this paper. When will we vow to work to stop the scourge of gun violence? Not just the mass shootings — which should be headline news — but also the homicides, suicides and unintentional shootings that plague our communities and destroy lives on a daily basis.

No more high-capacity ammunition magazines. No more military-style weapons. No more gun sales without a thorough background check.

No more valuing gun-industry profits over American lives.

Loren Lieb, Northridge

The writer chairs the board of directors of Women Against Gun Violence.

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To the editor: We’ve become a nation of sheep — lambs to the slaughter. We’re desensitized to the intolerable.

So many children, siblings and parents have fallen victim to the senseless mass shootings that the deaths of these people no longer make the front page of the L.A. Times. We don’t blink at the reporting of the most recent “incident.”

Columbine wasn’t enough to galvanize us, nor, unbelievably, was Sandy Hook. New Zealand set out to enact gun control after one major incident, whereas our leaders dither and pander to the gun lobby in the interest of political expediency.

We need to wake up. We don’t have to endure this. Let’s demand change and replace those individuals in government who selfishly sacrifice us. Many of our leaders don’t value the sanctity of our lives or those of the people we treasure. If they did, we would not be the only industrialized nation with this level of gun violence.

Jan Jay Judah, Torrance

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To the editor: Another “good guy” with a gun kills a dozen people.

Perhaps the National Rifle Assn., which seems to understand all these things, can let the rest of us know when a “good guy” with a gun is really a “bad guy” with a gun. The rest of us have no way of knowing.

George La Fountaine, San Clemente

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