To the editor:

As I write, two sounds to which I have sadly become accustomed fill my ears: first, a news report of yet another reactive slaughter caused by someone whose default solution to any problem was through the use of firearms, and second, the sound of god-fearing, red-blooded, patriotic Americans blasting away at the Holmes Harbor Rod and Gun Club — over a mile distant — as they exercise their Second Amendment right to blow things up. The latter group is not hunting, mind you — they’re just killing targets, however symbolic.

The cause of both of these disconcerting sounds — at least as this old boy sees it — is not the guns. The problem is the Great American gun fetish.

Kirk Francis

Langley