Re “It’s not guns” (Your Views, June 3): Stephen Davis attributes the increase in gun violence to moral decay, the breakdown of the two-parent family, and the pervasiveness of personal devices that encourage isolation. Does he have any data to show which, if any, of these is to blame? And if they are, does he have a solution to the problem? Do we enact laws to outlaw electronic devices, or to enforce shotgun weddings if an unwed woman becomes pregnant? And any law that tries to improve morality must not involve religion. The First Amendment is defended as vigorously as the Second.

Or does he mean that we are powerless to do anything to prevent gun violence and must accept it as the new normal? Harden our schools and, while we are at it, harden grocery stores, churches, massage parlors, etc.

I am a retired physician. In public health practice we do whatever we can to thwart disease. To paraphrase a statement often made by those opposed to gun controls: Mosquitos don’t cause malaria; the malaria parasite causes malaria. But in parts of the world where malaria is endemic, we can do nothing to eliminate the parasite. Therefore, we engage in mosquito control.

In the past 50 years we have greatly reduced the number of automobile-related fatalities. We have done so with laws that get unsafe drivers off the road and that improve the safety of the automobile itself. We could do the same with firearms.

Wilner N.J. Nelson, Yorktown

The pro-life movement in this country is poised to celebrate a victory in light of the expected U.S. Supreme Court ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade. If abortion is ultimately made illegal throughout the country, it will be a win for the unborn. But the work of the pro-lifers will only be halfway done. Why isn’t the pro-life movement as fervent about protecting the living? Will members protect life and protest the proliferation of guns in the United States?

Not every woman who is pregnant seeks an abortion. A woman chooses to have an abortion as a conscious decision. Similarly, not every gun owner uses his or her weapon to kill people. However, some gun owners choose to use their weapons to commit murder — in too many recent cases, multiple murders. A recent New England Journal of Medicine report stated that guns have eclipsed auto accidents as the leading killer of children ages 1 through 19. “Guns don’t kill people,” however some people with guns do kill people. The gun owner who chooses to commit murder is enabled by the weapon he or she uses. Murder is murder regardless if it is an unborn fetus or a living person.

The Archbishop of San Francisco, Salvatore Cordileone, has banned communion for Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi for her pro-choice (not pro-abortion) stance. Is this pompous cleric also banning communion from people who manufacture, sell or own guns?

If a woman’s choice to have an abortion is determined to be illegal, let’s see how loud the pro-life voices will be to restrict the sale of automatic weapons and protect the living.

Students at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, made the right decisions (hide and call 911). Politicians and responding officers did not and have not made decisions that protect citizens. Maybe the surviving students should propose common sense gun safety laws.

We, adults, ought to value the safety of our children over all else. They are the future.

America has an epidemic and no vaccine can cure it. It’s the epidemic of mass shootings by vendetta-charged individuals armed with semi-automatic rifles. It would be great if our leaders would aggressively take action to curb this uniquely American disease, but conservative politicians and the National Rifle Association lobby don’t want to see that happen.

Instead of trying to end this horrific violence, conservatives blur the issue with talk of mental illness, the erosion of the two-parent household, social media, and the non-participation in Judeo-Christian rituals.

Apologists for the easy access to guns like to fall back on worn out clichés like, “the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” Well, what ever happened to, “the best way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a cop with a gun”? Our society must take these “do nothing” politicians to task. We must hold them accountable for their indifference to this national killing spree that holds us all hostage under the antiquated banner of the Second Amendment.

These mass shootings are being carried out by sane people with hatred, bigotry and anger in their hearts. In nearly every single case these killers have sent up numerous red flags indicating what they were planning to do. Conservative politicians and conservative news outlets are blaming everything except the true culprits behind America’s unique epidemic of gun violence. The root of the problem is guns in general and assault rifles in particular. The recent tragedy at the elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, was America’s tipping point. The time has come to address the gun scourge in America.