This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2013, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
When I was a child, we kids played a game called "good guys and bad guys," where we divided up roles between the "good guys" and the "bad guys." We used our hands to mimic pistols, and had a pretend shoot-out where everyone ended up "dead." It was just a game.
Six days after the terrible school massacre in Newtown, Conn., Wayne LaPierre, spokesman for the National Rifle Association, called for armed guards in every school across America, saying: "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun."
Do LaPierre and the NRA think our country's epidemic of gun violence is just a game? If not, why do they trivialize it by using such childish language?
After Virginia Tech; Trolley Square; Tucson, Ariz.; Aurora, Colo.; and now Newtown, it is time to end the NRA's dominance of this issue. It is time for all Americans to have a serious adult conversation on how to stop this horrendous violence.
Thomas Huckin
Salt Lake City