Regarding “Shootings Spark Grief, Anger” in the Aug. 9 South Pasadena Review:
The psychology professor Christopher Ferguson has studied mass shootings for years, and finds little change over time. The United States saw 24 mass shootings in 2006, 27 in 2008, 24 in 2009, and so on. Last year we had 21. In 2019, we’ve had 19.
South Pasadena Mayor Marina Khubesrian explains our most recent mass shootings with this extraordinary statement: “(Trump’s) language, his lack of decency and basic humanity have emboldened those with hateful agendas to dehumanize people who don’t look like, pray like, love like they do.’’
This is nonsense, and exactly the kind of empty spew that has come to characterize our mayor’s contribution to our discourse. We had mass shootings long before Donald Trump became president, and will surely have them after Trump leaves office, but the only explanation for recent mass shootings is Trump’s “language.’’ Prove that.
The mass shooter in Dayton killed his own sister. The explanation is that Trump is making Americans kill people “who don’t look like, pray like, love like they do?’’
Trump hysteria has become a kind of national psychosis, as the president assumes the omnipotent and omnipresent role of Satan on the evangelical fringes. My car broke down — damn you, Trump! He is somehow the single cause of all evil.
We should work to solve the problem of mass shootings. As always, Mayor Khubesrian’s inane contribution does nothing to get us started.
Finally, you quote a series of public officials as saying that mass shootings can only be solved by gun legislation, and Congress is to blame for failing to act. But, amazingly, several of the same officials talk proudly about how much California has done to regulate guns, and they have this conversation without mentioning that gun regulation didn’t prevent the recent mass shooting in Gilroy.
If state gun regulation didn’t prevent the mass shooting in Gilroy, how would federal gun regulation have prevented the mass shootings in Dayton and El Paso?
The streets of Los Angeles are clogged with homeless people and awash in garbage and disease because our governing class has become addicted to magical thinking. A journey back to the world of fact and reason would be a good start.
Chris Bray, Grace Drive
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