Rev. Deb Hill-Davis, Des Moines

Letter to the Editor

It is painfully clear that the outcome of arming so many people is the increase in the frequency and intensity of shooting each other. The outcome is not less violence, but more violence. The hue and cry of the NRA is, “What stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”

Clearly, after the events of last week, the fallacy of that argument is self-evident. It may be a nice fantasy for some, but the reality of Dallas shows the degree of fantasy in the chaos and aftermath of another mentally ill person with a semi-automatic weapon. And it was a robot that took the shooter out, not a “good guy” with a gun. The saddest outcome is not finding the collective will to say enough; of not stopping to actually talk to each other before we shoot.

We don’t need a citizenry armed to the teeth with semi-automatic weapons unless we plan to go to war with each other. Now is the time to ask ourselves if that is what we really want because that is the road we are on. Abraham Lincoln reportedly said: “America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”

We are at a crossroads. What will we choose?

— the Rev. Deb Hill-Davis, Des Moines