To the editor:

The shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords — the latest in a long series of political attacks that date back in our country to Abraham Lincoln — is the harvest of our obsession with the freedom to own firearms no matter how deranged we are.

At some point, the balance of Constitutional authority under the Second Amendment must give ground to common sense. As Saturday’s shootings show, Mr. Loughner purchased his Glock legally, despite being refused readmission to his local community college and admission to the armed services, or law enforcement’s notice of his online threats.

But under our law, he could still buy a gun.

This is nonsense. I think we must pry sanity from Charleton Heston’s cold, dead hand to ask ourselves how many times we’ve used guns to defend ourselves versus how many times innocents have died for that Second Amendment language.

At some future date, we’ll conclude — along with most of the developed world — that we’re unwilling to surrender our security to the least stable among us.

Linda Beeman

Clinton