Dear Editor,

I am sure that many of you will agree that we are in the midst of a terrible crisis in our country. Our precious children are being slaughtered in their schools on a regular basis, and yet our elected officials in Washington refuse to take any kind of meaningful action to stem this evil tide of death and destruction.

Do we care more about our precious Second Amendment to the Constitution than we do about our precious children? There is not place in our civil society for the assault weapons and high-capacity magazines that fit many of them (weapons of mass destruction) or for the so-called “bump stocks” that convert semi-automatic into automatic weapons.

We the people have the power to force our elected representatives: the people that are there to represent us and not the gun lobbies. We have our right to vote. So I propose that at the coming 2018 election in November, that we vote for the people who we believe will best represent us, and not the gun lobbies and the National Rifle Association. We the people have the power to measurably reduce the gun violence in our country, but we have to vote.

So, let us take back the power that rightfully belongs to us and take it away from those who have been paying for it in recent decades.

In the words of Abraham Lincoln in his famous Gettysburg Address, “Let not government of the people, by the people, and for the people perish from the earth.” VOTE!

Ed Cunningham

Danville