To the editor: Centuries in the past, Pope Harmless II banned the usage of the then-new crossbow in opposition to Christians, sadly limiting its use to non-Christians solely. What we’d like right this moment is a pronouncement from all of our most extremely positioned spiritual leaders to denounce the manufacture, sale and buy of any and all firearms (“Pope Leo requires finish to ‘pandemic of arms’ as he prays for victims of Minnesota faculty capturing,” Aug. 31).
Pope Francis was right: The firearms business is a “service provider of loss of life,” empowered by all who facilitate it, and the political management that’s within the hip pocket of this business are its salesmen.
Ken Johnson, Santa Barbara
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To the editor: Once I learn the report of Pope Leo XIV’s pained phrases, “Allow us to plead God to cease the pandemic of arms, massive and small, which infects our world,” different phrases instantly got here to thoughts. Particularly, John F. Kennedy’s at his inaugural handle: “Asking His blessing and His assist, however figuring out that right here on Earth, God’s work should really be our personal.”
Bob Wieting, Simi Valley
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To the editor: The Los Angeles Instances reported that an El Dorado County hearth captain has been charged with two counts of murder: his girlfriend and her son, a second-grader — the primary in anger, the second to remove a witness (“Cal Fireplace captain fatally shot his girlfriend, then killed her son to cowl it up, prosecutors say,” Aug. 27). For each faculty capturing on this nation, there are dozens, if not a whole bunch, of shootings like this one. Somebody, overwhelmingly male, with poor anger and impulse management, shoots and kills different individuals. Two weeks earlier, in Brooklyn, N.Y., a capturing erupted in a nightclub that killed three individuals and wounded 9, mirroring the sort of carnage we simply noticed in Minneapolis.
Younger males go into leisure locations armed, simply in case their rivals present up armed. A fireplace captain has a gun at residence, simply in case his girlfriend (or whoever) ticks him off.
This isn’t about AR-15-style “weapons of conflict.” That is about availability and perspective; 340 million individuals, 400 million weapons and a complete lot of psychologically and socially maladjusted individuals. That is the nation we now inhabit and the nation the Supreme Courtroom, in its doubtful knowledge, has enabled and blessed.
Mitch Paradise, Los Angeles
